It became a very extended debate, in which Mr. Niles, Mr. Rives, Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Southard, Mr. Strange of N. C., Mr. Clay, Mr. Walker of Miss., and others partook. The subject having been referred to the committee of public lands, of which Mr. Walker was chairman, reported a bill, "limiting and designating the funds receivable for the revenues of the United States;" the object of which was to rescind the treasury circular without naming it, and to continue the receipt of bank notes in payment of all dues to the government. Soon after the bill was reported, and had received its second reading, a motion was made in the Senate to lay the impending subject (public lands) on the table for the purpose of considering the bill reported by Mr. Walker to limit and designate the funds receivable in public dues. Mr. Benton was taken by surprise by this motion, which was immediately agreed to, and the bill ordered to be engrossed for a third reading the next day. To that third reading Mr. Benton looked for his opportunity to speak; and availed himself of it, commencing his speech with giving the reason why he did not speak the evening before when the question was on the engrossment of the bill. He said he could not have foreseen that the subject depending before the Senate, the bill for limiting the sales of the public lands to actual settlers, would be laid down for the purpose of taking up this subject out of its order; and, therefore, had not brought with him some memorandums which he intended to use when this subject came up. He did not choose to ask for delay, because his habit was to speak to subjects when they were called; and in this particular cause he did not think it material when he spoke; for he was very well aware that his speaking would not affect the fate of the bill. It would pass; and that was known to all in the chamber. It was known to the senator from Ohio (Mr. Ewing) who indulged himself in saying he thought otherwise a few days ago; but that was only a good-natured way of stimulating his friends, and bringing them up to the scratch. The bill would pass, and that by a good vote, for it would have the vote of the opposition, and a division of the administration vote. Why, then, did he speak? Because it was due to his position, and the part he had acted on the currency questions, to express his sentiments more fully on this bill, so vital to the general currency, than could be done by a mere negative vote. He should, therefore, speak against it, and should direct his attention to the bill reported by the Public Land Committee, which had so totally changed the character of the proceeding on this subject. The recision of the treasury order was introduced a resolution—it went out a resolution—but it came back a bill, and a bill to regulate, not the land office receipts only, but all the receipts of the federal government; and in this new form is to become statute law, and a law to operate on all the revenues, and to repeal all other laws upon the subject to which it related. In this new form it assumes an importance, and acquires an effect, infinitely beyond a resolution, and becomes in fact, as well as in name, a totally new measure. Mr. B. reminded the Senate that he had, in his first speech on this subject, given it as his opinion, that two main objects were proposed to be accomplished by the rescinding resolution; first, the implied condemnation of President Jackson for violating the laws and constitution, and destroying the prosperity of the country; and, secondly, the imposition of the paper currency of the States upon the federal government. With respect to the first of these objects, he presumed it was fully proved by the speeches of all the opposition senators who had spoken on this subject; and, with respect to the second, he believed it would find its proof in the change which the original resolution had undergone, and the form it was now assuming of statute law, and especially with the proviso which was added at the end of the second section.
Mr. B. then took up the bill reported by the committee, and remarked, first, upon its phraseology, not in the spirit of verbal criticism, but in the spirit of candid objection and fair argument. There were cases in which words were things, and this was one of those cases. Money was a thing, and the only words in the constitution of that thing were, "gold and silver coin." The bill of the committee was systematically exclusive of the words which meant this thing, and used words which included things which were not money. These words were, then, a fair subject of objection and argument, because they went to set aside the money of the constitution, and to admit the public revenues to be paid in something which was not money. The title of the bill uses the word "funds." It professes to designate the funds receivable for the revenues of the United States. Upon this word Mr. B. had remarked before, as being one of the most indefinite in the English language; and, so far from signifying money only, even paper money only, that it comprehended every variety of paper security, public or private, individual or corporate out of which money could be raised. The retention of this word by the committee, after the objections made to it, were indicative of their intentions to lay open the federal treasury to the reception of something which was not constitutional money; and this intention, thus disclosed in the title to the bill, was fully carried out in its enactments. The words "legal currency of the United States" are twice used in the first section, when the words "gold and silver" would have been more appropriate and more definite, if hard money was intended.
Mr. B. admitted that, in the eye of a regular bred constitutional lawyer, legal currency might imply constitutional currency; but certain it was that the common and popular meaning of the phrase was not limited to constitutional money, but included every currency that the statute law made receivable for debts. Thus, the notes of the Bank of the United States were generally considered as legal currency, because receivable by law in payment of public dues; and in like manner the notes of all specie-paying banks would, under the committee's bill, rise to the dignity of legal currency. The second section of the bill twice used the word "cash;" a word which, however understood at the Bank of England, where it always means ready money, and where ready money signifies gold coin in hand, yet with the banks with which we have to deal it has no such meaning, but includes all sorts of current paper money on hand, as well as gold and silver on hand.
Having remarked upon the phraseology of the bill, and shown that a paper currency composed of the notes of a thousand local banks, not only might become the currency of the federal government, but was evidently intended to be made its currency; and that in the face of all the protestations of the friends of the administration in favor of re-establishing the national gold currency, Mr. B. would now take up the bill of the committee under two or three other aspects, and show it to be as mistaken in its design as it would be impotent in its effect. In the first place, it transferred the business of suppressing the small note circulation from the deposit branch to the collecting branch of the public revenue. At present, the business was in a course of progress through the deposit banks, as a condition of holding the public moneys; and, as such, had a place in the deposit act of the last session, and also had a place in the President's message of the last session, where the suppression of paper currency under twenty dollars was expressly referred to the action of the deposit banks, and as a condition of their retaining the public deposits. It was through the deposit banks, and not through the reception of local bank paper, that the suppression of small notes should be effected. In the next place, he objected to the committee's bill, because it proposed to make a bargain with each of the thousand banks now in the United States, and the hundreds more which will soon be born; and to give them a right—a right by law—to have their notes received at the federal treasury. He was against such a bargain. He had no idea of making a contract with these thousand banks for the reception of their notes. He had no idea of contracting with them, and giving them a right to plead the constitution of the United States against us, if, at any time, after having agreed to receive their notes, upon condition that they would give up their small circulation, they should choose to say we had impaired the contract by not continuing to receive them; and so either relapse into the issue of this small trash, or have recourse to the judicial process to compel the United States to abide the contract, and continue the reception of all their notes. Mr. B. had no idea of letting down this federal government to such petty and inconvenient bargains with a thousand moneyed corporations. The government of the United States ought to act as a government, and not as a contractor. It should prescribe conditions, and not make bargains. It should give the law. He was against these bargains, even if they were good ones; but they were bad bargains, wretchedly bad, and ought to be rejected as such, even if all higher and nobler considerations were out of the question. What is the consideration that the United States is to receive? A mere individual agreement with each bank by itself, that in three years it will cease to issue notes under ten dollars and in five years it will cease to issue notes under twenty dollars. What is the price which she pays for this consideration? In the first place, it receives the notes of such bank as gold and silver at all the land-offices, custom-houses, and post-offices, of the United States; and, of course, pays them out again as gold and silver to all her debtors. In the next place, it compels the deposit banks to credit them as cash. In the third place, it accredits the whole circulation of the banks, and makes it current all over the United States, in consequence of universal receivability for all federal dues. In other words, it endorses, so far as credit is concerned, the whole circulation of every bank that comes into the bargain thus proposed. This is certainly a most wretched bargain on the part of the United States—a bargain in which what she receives is ruinous to her; for the more local payment she receives in payment of her revenues, the worse for her, and the sooner will her treasury be filled with unavailable funds.
Mr. B. having gone over these objections to the committee's bill, would now ascend to a class of objections of a higher and graver character. He had already remarked that the committee had carried out a resolution, and had brought back a bill; that the committee proposed a statutory enactment, where the senator from Ohio [Mr. Ewing], and the senator from Virginia [Mr. Rives], had only proposed a joint resolution; and he had already further remarked, that in addition to this total change in the mode of action, the committee had added what neither of these senators had proposed, a clause, under a proviso, to enact paper money into cash—to pass paper money to the credit of the United States, as cash—and to punish, by the loss of the deposits, any deposit bank which should refuse so to receive, so to credit, and so to pass, the notes "receivable" under the provisions of their bill. These two changes make entirely a new measure—one of wholly a different character from the resolutions of the two senators—a measure which openly and in terms, and under penalties undertakes to make local State paper a legal tender to the federal government, and to compel the reception of all its revenues in the notes "receivable" under the provisions of the committee's bill. After this gigantic step—this colossal movement—in favor of paper money, there was but one step more for the committee to take; and that was to make these notes a legal tender in all payments from the federal government. But that step was unnecessary to be taken in words, for it is taken in fact, when the other great step becomes law. For it is incontestable that what the government receives, it must pay out; and what it pays out becomes the currency of the country. So that when this bill passes, the paper money of the local banks will be a tender by law to the federal government, and a tender by duresse from the government to its creditors and the people. This is the state to which the committee's bill will bring us! and now, let us pause and contemplate, for a moment, the position we occupy, and the vast ocean of paper on which we are proposed to be embarked.
We stand upon a constitution which recognizes nothing but gold and silver for money; we stand upon a legislation of near fifty years, which recognizes nothing but gold and silver money. Now, for the first time, we have a statutory enactment proposed to recognize the paper of a wilderness of local banks for money, and in so doing to repeal all prior legislation by law, and the constitution by fact. This is an era in our legislation. It is statute law to control all other law, and is not a resolution to aid other laws, and to express the opinions of Congress. It is statutory enactment to create law, and not a declaratory resolution to expound law; and the effects of this statute would be, to make a paper government—to insure the exportation of our specie—to leave the State banks without foundations to rest upon—to produce a certain catastrophe in the whole paper system—to revive the pretensions of the United States Bank—and to fasten for a time the Adam Smith system upon the Federal Government and the whole Union.
Mr. Benton concluded his speech with a warning against the coming explosion of the banks; and said:
The day of revulsion may come sooner or later, and its effects may be more or less disastrous; but, come it must, and disastrous, to some degree, it must be. The present bloat in the paper system cannot continue; the present depreciation of money exemplified in the high price of every thing dependent upon the home market, cannot last. The revulsion will come, as surely as it did in 1819-'20. But it will come with less force if the treasury order is maintained, and if paper money shall be excluded from the federal treasury. But, let these things go as they may, and let reckless or mischievous banks do what they please, there is still a refuge for the wise and good; there is still an ark of safety for every honest bank, and for every prudent man; it is in the mass of gold and silver now in the country—the seventy odd millions which the wisdom of President Jackson's administration has accumulated—and by getting their share of which, all who are so disposed can take care of themselves. Sir (said Mr. B.), I have performed a duty to myself, not pleasant, but necessary. This bill is to be an era in our legislation and in our political history. It is to be a point upon which the future age will be thrown back, and from which future consequences will be traced. I separate myself from it; I wash my hands of it; I oppose it. I am one of those who promised gold, not paper. I promised the currency of the constitution, not the currency of corporations. I did not join in putting down the Bank of the United States, to put up a wilderness of local banks. I did not join in putting down the paper currency of a national bank, to put up a national paper currency of a thousand local banks. I did not strike Cæsar to make Anthony master of Rome.