Again: Will not the bank take compassion on the good city of Philadelphia, which has ever been devoted to its interest? Boston has been called the Athens of America; New York, the great Commercial Emporium; and Baltimore, the Monumental City; whilst Philadelphia has been distinguished by the name of the City of the Bank or marble palace; and well have her citizens earned this distinction by their loyalty. Will the bank now consent to see her commerce and trade languish, and her star wane before that of New York, rather than retrace its steps and resume specie payments? No, never. Forbid it, gratitude!
That this must be the effect, who can doubt? Merchants who come from a distance to purchase goods with money in hand will go where they can buy the cheapest; and goods at a specie standard must always be cheaper than in a depreciated currency. Those who have produce to sell, especially if the sale is to be made upon credit, will select that market where they will receive its price in a sound currency. Already the prospect of resumption in New York has made Philadelphia bank notes worth less by five per cent. than those of that city. What will this difference become when the one city shall have resumed, and the circulation of the other shall be irredeemable paper? Who that has money to remit or deposit will send it to Philadelphia, to be returned in notes depreciated to an extent which cannot be foreseen, when they can send it to New York with a perfect confidence that it will be returned to them according to the specie standard? Under such a state of things, the trade of New York must increase and flourish at the expense of that of Philadelphia. I have not time, at present, to enter into further particulars on this branch of the subject.
The people of Pennsylvania have submitted patiently to the suspension of specie payments by their banks. They have bowed to the necessity which existed, and have treated them with kindness and generosity. The Bank of the United States has proclaimed its ability to resume, and our other banks are in the same situation. The necessity for a further suspension no longer exists. Pay your honest debts when you are able, is a maxim dear to the people of Pennsylvania. This duty has now become a question of morality, far transcending any question of policy. If these privileged corporations now any longer refuse to pay their honest debts, either for the sake of their own advantage, or from a desire to elevate one political party and depress another, the indignation of honest men, of all parties, will be roused against them. There will be a burst of popular feeling from our mountains and our valleys, which they will be compelled to respect. Thank God! public opinion in the interior of Pennsylvania is yet stronger than the money power. Our people will never submit to the degradation that their banks shall furnish them no currency but that of irredeemable paper; whilst, throughout the State of New York, the banks shall have resumed specie payments. Nothing could be more wounding to my own pride, as a Pennsylvanian.
If our banks should hold out, under the command of their great leader, until the first day of January next, many of them will never be able to resume. The public confidence, which their conduct since the suspension has hitherto inspired, will long ere that distant day cease to exist. No run would now be made on them in case they resume; but if they are forced into the measure by public opinion, after resisting as long as they can, the days of many of them will then be numbered. Honesty, duty, policy, all conspire to dictate to them a speedy resumption.
In conclusion, permit me to remark, that the people of the United States have abundant cause for the deepest gratitude towards that great and glorious man now in retirement for preventing the recharter of the Bank of the United States. He is emphatically the man of the age, and has left a deeper and more enduring impress upon it than any individual of our country. Still, in regard to the bank, he performed but half his work. For its completion we are indebted to the president of the bank. Had the bank confined itself, after it accepted the charter from Pennsylvania, to its mere banking and financial operations—had it exerted its power to regulate the domestic exchanges of the country—and, above all, had it taken the lead in the resumption of specie payments, a new bank, Phœnix-like, might have arisen from the ashes of the old. That danger, from present appearances, has now passed away. The open defiance of Congress by the bank—the laws of the country over and over again violated—its repeated attempts to interfere in the party politics of the day—all, all have taught the people the danger of such a vast moneyed corporation. Mr. Biddle has finished the work which General Jackson only commenced.
Not one particle of personal hostility towards that gentleman has been mingled in my discussion of the question. On the contrary, as a private gentleman, I respect him; and my personal intercourse with him, though not frequent, has been of the most agreeable character. I am always ready to do justice to his great and varied talents. I have spoken of the public conduct of the bank over which he presides with the freedom and boldness which I shall always exercise in the performance of my public duties. It is the president of the bank, not the man, that I have assailed. It is the nature of the institution over which he presides that has made him what he is. Like all other men, he must yield to his destiny. The possession of such vast and unlimited power, continued for a long period of years, would have turned the head of almost any other man, and have driven him to as great excesses.
In vain you may talk to me about paper restrictions in the charter of a bank of sufficient magnitude to be able to crush the other banks of the country. When did a vast moneyed monopoly ever regard the law, if any great interest of its own stood in the way? It will then violate its charter, and its own power will secure it impunity. It well knows that in its destruction the ruin of hundreds and thousands would be involved, and therefore it can do almost what it pleases. The history of the bank for several years past has been one continued history of violated laws, and of attempts to interfere in the politics of the country. Create another bank, and place any other man at its head, and the result will be the same. Such an institution will always hereafter prove too strong for the Government; because we cannot again expect to see, at least in our day, another Andrew Jackson in the Presidential chair. On the other hand, should such a bank, wielding the moneyed power of the country, form an alliance with the political power, and that is the natural position of the parties, their combined influence would govern the Union, and liberty might become an empty name.
Mr. Buchanan’s Reply to Mr. Clay, on the same day.
Mr. Buchanan said he had never enjoyed many triumphs, and therefore he prized the more highly the one which he had won this day. He had forced the honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] to break that determined silence which had hitherto sealed his lips on the subject of this bill. Thus, said Mr. B., I have adorned my brow with a solitary sprig of laurel. Not one word was he to utter upon the present occasion. This he had announced publicly.
[Here Mr. Clay dissented.]