Thomas Hart Benton

by Theodore Roosevelt

The two great reasons for Jackson's success throughout his political career were to be found in the strength of the feeling in his favor among the poorer and least educated classes of voters, and in the ardent support given him by the low politicians, who, by playing on his prejudices and passions, moulded him to their wishes, and who organized and perfected in their own and his interests a great political machine, founded on the "spoils system"; and both the Jacksonian rank and file and the Jacksonian politicians soon agreed heartily in their opposition to the Bank. Jackson and Benton opposed it for the same reasons that the bulk of their followers did; that is to say, partly from honest and ignorant prejudice and partly from a well-founded feeling of distrust as to some of its actions. The mass of their fellow party-leaders and henchmen assailed it with the cry that it was exerting its influence to debauch politics, while at the same time they really sought to use it as a power in politics on their own side.

Jackson, in his first annual message in 1829, had hinted that he was opposed to the re-charter of the Bank, then a question of the future and not to arise for four or five years. At the same time he had called in question the constitutionality and expediency of the Bank's existence, and had criticised as vicious its currency system. The matter of constitutionality had been already decided by the Supreme Court, the proper tribunal, and was, and had been for years, an accepted fact; it was an absurdity to call it in question. As regards the matter of expediency, certainly the Jacksonians failed signally to put anything better in its place. Yet it was undeniable that there were grave defects in the currency system.

The president's message roused but little interest, and what little it did rouse was among the Bank's friends. At once these began to prepare the way for the re-charter by an active and extensive agitation in its favor. The main bank was at Philadelphia, but it had branches everywhere, and naturally each branch bank was a centre of opposition to the president's proposed policy. As the friends of the Bank were greatly interested, and as the matter did not immediately concern those who afterwards became its foes, the former, for the time, had it all their own way, and the drift of public opinion seemed to be strongly in its favor.

Benton was almost the only public man of prominence who tried to stem this tide from the beginning. Jackson's own party associates were originally largely against him, and so he stood all the more in need of the vigorous support which he received from the Missouri senator. Indeed, it would be unfair in the matter of the attack on the Bank to call Benton Jackson's follower; he might with more propriety be called the leader in the assault, although of course he could accomplish little compared with what was done by the great popular idol. He had always been hostile to the Bank, largely as a matter of Jeffersonian tradition, and he had shown his hostility by resolutions introduced in the Senate before Jackson was elected president.

Early in 1831 he asked leave to introduce a resolution against the re-charter of the Bank; his purpose being merely to give formal notice of war against it, and to attempt to stir up a current of feeling counter to that which then seemed to be generally prevailing in its favor. In his speech he carefully avoided laying stress upon any such abstract point as that of constitutionality, and dwelt instead upon the questions that would affect the popular mind; assailing the Bank "as having too much power over the people and the government, over business and politics, and as too much disposed to exercise that power to the prejudice of the freedom and equality which should prevail in a republic, to be allowed to exist in our country." The force of such an argument in a popular election will be acknowledged by all practical politicians. But, although Benton probably believed what he said, or at any rate most of it, he certainly ought not to have opened the discussion of a great financial measure with a demagogic appeal to caste prejudices. He wished to substitute a gold currency in the place of the existing bank-notes, and was not disturbed at all as to how he would supply the place of the Bank, saying: "I am willing to see the charter expire, without providing any substitute for the present Bank. I am willing to see the currency of the federal government left to the hard money mentioned and intended in the Constitution; ... every species of paper might be left to the state authorities, unrecognized by the federal government!" Of the beauties of such a system as the last the country later on received practical demonstration. Some of his utterances, however, could be commended to the friends of greenbacks and of dishonest money even at the present day, as when he says: "Gold and silver are the best currency for a republic; it suits the men of middle property and the working people best; and if I was going to establish a workingman's party it should be on the basis of hard money—a hard-money party against a paper party." The Bank was in Philadelphia; much of the stock was held in the East, and a good deal was held abroad, which gave Benton a chance to play on sectional feelings, as follows: "To whom is all the power granted? To a company of private individuals, many of them foreigners, and the mass of them residing in a remote and narrow corner of the Union, unconnected by any sympathy with the fertile regions of the Great Valley, in which the natural power of this Union—the power of numbers—will be found to reside long before the renewed term of a second charter would expire." Among the other sentences occurs the following bit of pure demagogic pyrotechnics: "It [the Bank] tends to aggravate the inequality of fortunes; to make the rich richer and the poor poorer; to multiply nabobs and paupers; and to deepen and widen the gulf which separates Dives from Lazarus. A great moneyed power is favorable to great capitalists, for it is the principle of money to favor money. It is unfavorable to small capitalists, for it is the principle of money to eschew the needy and unfortunate. It is injurious to the laboring classes." Altogether it was not a speech to be proud of. The Senate refused permission to introduce the resolution by the close vote of twenty-three to twenty.

Benton lived only a generation after that one which had itself experienced oppression from a king, from an aristocratic legislature and from a foreign power; and so his rant about the undue influence of foreigners in our governmental affairs, and his declamation over the purely supposititious powers that were presumed to be conspiring against the welfare of the poorer classes probably more nearly expressed his real feelings than would be the case with the similar utterances of any leading statesman nowadays. He was an enthusiastic believer in the extreme Jeffersonian doctrinaire views as to the will of the majority being always right, and as to the moral perfection of the average voter. Like his fellow-statesmen he failed to see the curious absurdity of supporting black slavery, and yet claiming universal suffrage for whites as a divine right, not as a mere matter of expediency resulting on the whole better than any other method. He had not learned that the majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would have to oppress the former; and that, if there is a moral principle at stake, the saying that the voice of the people is the voice of God may be quite as untrue, and do quite as much mischief, as the old theory of the divine right of kings. The distinguishing feature of our American governmental system is the freedom of the individual; it is quite as important to prevent his being oppressed by many men as it is to save him from the tyranny of one.

This speech on the re-charter showed a great deal of wide reading and much information; but a good part of it was sheer declamation, in the turgid, pompous style that Benton, as well as a great many other American public speakers, was apt to mistake for genuine oratory. His subsequent speech on the currency, however, was much better. This was likewise delivered on the occasion of asking leave to present a joint resolution, which leave was refused. The branch draft system was the object of the assault. These branch drafts were for even sums of small denomination, circulating like bank-notes; they were drawn on the parent bank at Philadelphia to the order of some officer of the branch bank and were indorsed by the latter to bearer. Thus paper was issued at one place which was payable at another and a distant place; and among other results there ensued a constant inflation of credit. They were very mischievous in their workings; they had none of the marks of convertible bank-notes or money, and so long as credit was active there could be no check on the inflation of the currency by them. Payment could be voluntarily made at the branch banks whence issued, but if it was refused the owner had only the right to go to Philadelphia and sue the directors there. Most of these drafts were issued at the most remote and inaccessible branches, the payment of them being, therefore, much delayed by distance and difficulty; nor were the directors liable for excessive issues. They constituted the bulk of all the paper seen in circulation; they were supposed to be equivalent to money, but being bills of exchange they were merely negotiable instruments; they did not have the properties of bank-notes, which are constantly and directly interchangeable with money. In their issue Biddle had laid himself open to attack; and in defending them he certainly did not always speak the truth, willfully concealing or coloring facts. Moreover, his self-satisfaction and the foolish pride in his own power, which he could not conceal, led him into making imprudent boasts as to the great power the Bank could exercise over other local banks, and over the general prosperity of the country, while dilating upon its good conduct in not using this power to the disadvantage of the public. All this was playing into Benton's hands. He showed some of the evils of the branch draft system, although apparently not seeing others that were quite as important. He attacked the Bank for some real and many imaginary wrongdoings; and quoted Biddle himself as an authority for the existence of powers dangerous to the welfare of the state.

The advocates of the Bank were still in the majority in both houses of Congress, and soon began preparations for pushing through a bill for the re-charter. The issue began to become political. Webster, Clay, and most of the other anti-administration men were for the Bank; and so when the convention of the National Republicans, who soon afterwards definitely assumed the name of Whigs, took place, they declared heartily in its favor, and nominated for the presidency its most enthusiastic supporter, Henry Clay. The Bank itself unquestionably preferred not to be dragged into politics; but Clay, thinking he saw a chance for a successful stroke, fastened upon it, and the convention that nominated him made the fight against Jackson on the ground that he was hostile to the Bank. Even had this not already been the case no more certain method of insuring his hostility could have been adopted.

Still, however, many of Jackson's supporters were also advocates of re-charter; and the bill for that purpose commanded the majority in Congress. Benton took the lead in organizing the opposition, not with the hope of preventing its passage, but "to attack incessantly, assail at all points, display the evil of the institution, rouse the people, and prepare them to sustain the veto." In other words, he was preparing for an appeal to the people, and working to secure an anti-Bank majority in the next Congress. He instigated and prepared the investigation into the affairs of the Bank, which was made in the House, and he led the harassing parliamentary warfare carried on against the re-chartering bill in the Senate. He himself seems to have superintended the preparation of the charges which were investigated by the House. A great flurry was made over them, Benton and all his friends claiming that they were fully substantiated; but the only real point scored was that against the branch drafts. Benton, with the majority of the committee of investigation, had the loosest ideas as to what a bank ought to do, loud though they were in denunciation of what this particular Bank was alleged to have done.

Webster made the great argument in favor of the re-charter bill. Benton took the lead in opposition, stating, what was probably true,—that the bill was brought up so long before the charter expired for political reasons, and criticising it as premature; a criticism unfortunately applicable with even greater force to Jackson's message. His speech was largely mere talking against time, and he wandered widely from the subject. Among other things he invoked the aid of the principle of states'-rights, because the Bank then had power to establish branches in any state, whether the latter liked it or not, and free from state taxation. He also appealed to the Western members as such, insisting that the Bank discriminated against their section of the country in favor of the East; the facts being that the shrewdness and commercial morality of the Northeast, particularly of New England, saved them from the evils brought on the Westerners by the foolishness with which they abused their credit and the laxness with which they looked on monetary obligations. But in spite of all that Benton could do the bill passed both houses, the Senate voting in its favor by twenty-eight ayes against twenty nays.