In this brief argument, I have not attempted to derive any power from the fact that the United States were proprietors of one-fifth of the stock of the old bank, and that they might be rendered responsible, either legally or equitably, for the eventual redemption of these dead notes. I disclaim any such source of power. To be a proprietor is one thing, and to be a sovereign is another. The mere fact that we owned stock can confer no power upon us, which we would not have possessed, had we never been interested to the amount of a dollar. We should have the same power to wind up a bank emanating from our sovereign authority in the one case as in the other. We possess the same power to close the concerns of all the banks in the District of Columbia after their charters shall have expired, although we are not proprietors of any of their stock, which we have to wind up the Bank of the United States, in which we were so deeply interested.
I need scarcely observe that I do not contend for any power to punish citizens of the United States, or even the officers of banking institutions, except such of them only as the trustees of the bank created by ourselves, for issuing these dead notes. We intend to punish the trustees under our own law, and them alone, for the violation of that law. These notes may circulate from hand to hand without rendering those who receive or those who pay them obnoxious to any punishment. Even if we possessed the power, it would be highly unjust to attempt its exercise. As I observed before, these notes have no earmarks, and no man can tell whether any one of them has been illegally reissued by the bank since the 3d March, 1836, or whether it was issued before that date, and has continued legally to circulate in the community ever since.
I repeat, I should be glad to see any Senator, and especially any one who believes that Congress possesses the constitutional power to charter a Bank of the United States, rise in his place, and make even a plausible argument in opposition to the plain and almost self-evident positions which I have taken in support of the power to pass this bill. Those Senators who doubt or deny our power to create such a bank are placed in a different situation, because their vote in favor of this bill might at first view seem, by implication, to concede that power. This objection does not appear to me to be sound. That question cannot be fairly raised by this bill. Whether the charter of the late bank was constitutional is no longer a fair subject of consideration. It was adopted by Congress, approved by the President, and afterwards pronounced to be constitutional by the highest judicial tribunal of the land. It thus received every sanction necessary to make it binding on the people of the United States. The question was thus settled beyond the control of any individual, and it was the duty of every good citizen to submit. Under every government there must be a time when such controversies shall cease; and you might now as well attempt to exclude Louisiana from the Union, because you may believe her admission was unconstitutional, as to act upon the principle, in the present case, that Congress had no power to charter the late bank. No man on this floor had ever avowed that he would vote to repeal the charter of the late bank, during the twenty years of its existence, because he might have thought it was originally unconstitutional. During this period all were obliged to submit. Under such circumstances, it would be carrying constitutional scruples very far, indeed, for any gentleman to contend that, although the bank has existed under the sanction of a law which we were all bound to obey, we cannot now execute that law and close its concerns, because as individuals we may have deemed it to be originally unconstitutional. If it had been so, the obligation upon us would only be the stronger to wind it up finally, and thus terminate its existence.
I most cheerfully admit that if an attempt should ever be made to charter another bank, the question of constitutional power would then again be referred to each individual member of Congress, to be decided according to the dictates of his own judgment and his own conscience.
Before I take my seat, I intend to make some remarks on the causes of the suspension of specie payments by the banks of the country, and the causes equally powerful which must, and that ere long, compel a resumption.
The late manifesto issued by the present Bank of the United States displays, upon its face, that it has inherited from the old bank an unconquerable disposition to interfere in the politics of the country. This has been its curse, its original sin, to which it owes all its calamities and all its misfortunes. It has not yet learned wisdom from its severe experience. Would that it might, and confine itself to its appropriate sphere! As a citizen of Pennsylvania, I most ardently and devoutly express this wish. It has now set itself up, as the primary power, against the resumption of specie payments, and has attempted to enlist in the same cause all the other banks of the country. Its language to them is, that “the Bank of the United States makes common cause with the other banks.” And again: “They (the banks) are now safe and strong, and they should not venture beyond their entrenchments, while the enemy is in the plain before them.” “The American banks should do, in short, what the American army did at New Orleans, stand fast behind their cotton bales, until the enemy has left the country.”
Thus whilst every eye and every heart was directed to the banks, expecting anxiously from them a speedy resumption of specie payments, this grand regulator of the currency has proclaimed to the country that all its vast power will be exerted to prevent the accomplishment of our wishes.
The bank does not even attempt to conceal the fact that, in pursuing this course, it has been actuated by political hostility against the present administration. It has been boldly avowed that “if the banks resume, and are able, by sacrificing the community, to continue for a few months, it will be conclusively employed at the next elections to show that the schemes of the executive are not as destructive as they will prove hereafter.” In plain language, the banks must not resume before the next elections; they must not open their vaults, pay their honest debts, and thus redeem the country from the curse of an irredeemable paper currency; because, if they should, this may operate in favor of the present administration, and place its opponents in a minority. And such is the conduct of the bank whilst it vaunts its own ability to resume immediately.
The bank proceeds still further, and complains that “bank notes are proscribed not merely from the land offices, but from all payments of every description to the Government.” I would ask, has any Senator upon this floor, has any statesman of any party in the country, ever raised his voice in favor of the receipt by the Government of irredeemable bank paper? I beg their pardon; two Senators have proposed such a measure, [Messrs. Preston and Clay]; but I will do them the justice to say, that although I considered their proposition most unwise and impolitic, and resisted it as such at the time, yet they intended by this means to enable the banks the sooner to resume specie payments.
Mr. Preston. It was exclusively limited to that consideration.