| 1822, | $17,676,592 63 |
| 1823, | 15,314,171 00 |
| In 1822, | $7,848,919 12 |
| 1823, | 5,530,016 41 |
| For 1822, | $9,727,673 41 |
| 1823, | 9,784,155 59 |
| Revolutionary. | Invalid. | Aggregate. | |
| 1822, | $1,642,590 94 | $305,608 46 | $1,947,199 40 |
| 1823, | 1,449,097 04 | 331,491 48 | 1,730,588 52 |
It was something at the time this inquiry took place to know which was right—General Smith, or myself. Two millions, more or less, per annum in the public expenditures, was then something—a thing to be talked about, and accounted for, among the economical men of that day. It seems to be nothing now, when the increases are many millions per annum—when personal and job legislation have become the frequent practice—when contracts are legislated to adventurers and speculators—when the halls of Congress have come to be considered the proper place to lay the foundations, or to repair the dilapidations of millionary fortunes: and when the public fisc, and the national domain may consider themselves fortunate sometimes in getting off with a loss of two millions in a single operation.
CHAPTER LXIII.
BANK OF THE UNITED STATES—RECHARTER COMMENCEMENT OF THE PROCEEDINGS.
In the month of December 1831, the "National Republicans" (as the party was then called which afterwards took the name of "whig"), assembled in convention at Baltimore to nominate candidates of their party for the presidential, and vice-presidential election, which was to take place in the autumn of the ensuing year. The nominations were made—Henry Clay of Kentucky, for President; and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania for Vice-President: and the nominations accepted by them respectively. Afterwards, and according to what was usual on such occasions, the convention issued an address to the people of the United States, setting forth the merits of their own, and the demerits of the opposite candidate; and presenting the party issues which were to be tried in the ensuing elections. So far as these issues were political, they were legitimate subjects to place before the people: so far as they were not political, they were illegitimate, and wrongfully dragged into the political arena, to be made subservient to party elevation. Of this character were the topics of the tariff, of internal improvement, the removal of the Cherokee Indians, and the renewal of the United States Bank charter. Of these four subjects, all of them in their nature unconnected with politics, and requiring for their own good to remain so unconnected, I now notice but one—that of the renewal of the charter of the existing national bank;—and which was now presented as a party object, and as an issue in the election, and under all the exaggerated aspects which party tactics consider lawful in the prosecution of their aims. The address said:
"Next to the great measures of policy which protect and encourage domestic industry, the most important question, connected with the economical policy of the country, is that of the bank. This great and beneficial institution, by facilitating exchanges between different parts of the Union, and maintaining a sound, ample, and healthy state of the currency, may be said to supply the body politic, economically viewed, with a continual stream of life-blood, without which it must inevitably languish, and sink into exhaustion. It was first conceived and organized by the powerful mind of Hamilton. After having been temporarily shaken by the honest though groundless scruples of other statesmen, it has been recalled to existence by the general consent of all parties, and with the universal approbation of the people. Under the ablest and most faithful management it has been for many years past pursuing a course of steady and constantly increasing influence. Such is the institution which the President has gone out of his way in several successive messages, without a pretence of necessity or plausible motive, in the first instance six years before his suggestion could with any propriety be acted upon, to denounce to Congress as a sort of nuisance, and consign, as far as his influence extends, to immediate destruction.
"For this denunciation no pretext of any adequate motive is assigned. At a time when the institution is known to all to be in the most efficient and prosperous state—to be doing all that any bank ever did or can do, we are briefly told in ten words, that it has not effected the objects for which it was instituted, and must be abolished. Another institution is recommended as a substitute, which, so far as the description given of it can be understood, would be no better than a machine in the hands of the government for fabricating and issuing paper money without check or responsibility. In his recent message to Congress, the President declares, for the third time, his opinion on these subjects, in the same concise and authoritative style as before, and intimates that he shall consider his re-election as an expression of the opinion of the people that they ought to be acted on. If, therefore, the President be re-elected, it may be considered certain that the bank will be abolished, and the institution which he has recommended, or something like it, substituted in its place.
"Are the people of the United States prepared for this? Are they ready to destroy one of their most valuable establishments to gratify the caprice of a chief magistrate, who reasons, and advises upon a subject, with the details of which he is evidently unacquainted, in direct contradiction to the opinion of his own official counsellors? Are the enterprising, liberal, high-minded, and intelligent merchants of the Union willing to countenance such a measure? Are the cultivators of the West, who find in the Bank of the United States a never-failing source of that capital, which is so essential to their prosperity, and which they can get nowhere else, prepared to lend their aid in drying up the fountain of their own prosperity? Is there any class of the people or section of the Union so lost to every sentiment of common prudence, so regardless of all the principles of republican government, as to place in the hands of the executive department the means of an irresponsible and unlimited issue of paper money—in other words, the means of corruption without check or bounds? If such be, in fact, the wishes of the people, they will act with consistency and propriety in voting for General Jackson, as President of the United States; for, by his re-election, all these disastrous effects will certainly be produced. He is fully and three times over pledged to the people to negative any bill that may be passed for re-chartering the bank, and there is little doubt that the additional influence which he would acquire by a re-election, would be employed to carry through Congress the extraordinary substitute which he has repeatedly proposed."