A Biography of Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky / Containing Also, a Complete Report of All His Speeches; Selections From His Private Correspondence; Eulogies in the Senate and House; and a Poem, by George D. Prentice, Esq.

by Unknown

If there be an electioneering motive in the matter, who have been actuated by it? Those who have taken the president at his word, and deliberated on a measure which he has repeatedly recommended to their consideration; or those who have resorted to all sorts of means to elude the question—by alternately coaxing and threatening the bank; by an extraordinary investigation into the administration of the bank; and by every species of postponement and procrastination, during the progress of the bill?

Notwithstanding all these dilatory expedients, a majority of congress, prompted by the will and the best interests of the nation, passed the bill. And I shall now proceed, with great respect and deference, to examine some of the objections to its becoming a law, contained in the president’s message, avoiding, as much as I can, a repetition of what gentlemen have said who preceded me.

The president thinks that the precedents, drawn from the proceedings of congress, as to the constitutional power to establish a bank, are neutralized, by there being two for and two against the authority. He supposes that one congress, in 1811, and another in 1815, decided against the power. Let us examine both of these cases. The house of representatives in 1811, passed the bill to recharter the bank, and, consequently, affirmed the power. The senate, during the same year, were divided, seventeen and seventeen, and the vice-president gave the casting vote. Of the seventeen who voted against the bank, we know from the declaration of the senator from Maryland, (general Smith,) now present, that he entertained no doubt whatever of the constitutional power of congress to establish a bank, and that he voted on totally distinct ground. Taking away his vote and adding it to the seventeen who voted for the bank, the number would have stood eighteen for, and sixteen against the power. But we know further, that Mr. Gaillard, Mr. Anderson, and Mr. Robinson, made a part of that sixteen; and that in 1815, all three of them voted for the bank. Take those three votes from the sixteen, and add them to the eighteen, and the vote of 1811, as to the question of constitutional power, would have been twenty-one and thirteen. And of these thirteen there might have been others still, who were not governed in their votes by any doubts of the power.

In regard to the congress of 1815, so far from their having entertained any scruples in respect to the power to establish a bank, they actually passed a bank bill, and thereby affirmed the power. It is true that, by the casting vote of the speaker of the house of representatives, (Mr. Cheves,) they rejected another bank bill, not ongrounds of want of power, but upon considerations of expediency in the particular structure of that bank.

Both the adverse precedents therefore, relied upon in the message, operate directly against the argument which they were brought forward to maintain. Congress, by various other acts, in relation to the bank of the United States, has again and again sanctioned the power. And I believe it may be truly affirmed, that from the commencement of the government to this day, there has not been a congress opposed to the bank of the United States upon the distinct ground of a want of power to establish it.

And here, Mr. President, I must request the indulgence of the senate, whilst I express a few words in relation of myself.

I voted, in 1811, against the old bank of the United States, and I delivered on that occasion, a speech, in which, among other reasons, I assigned that of its being unconstitutional. My speech has been read to the senate, during the progress of this bill,but the reading of it excited no other regret than that it was read in such a wretched, bungling, mangling manner.[20] During a long public life, (I mention the fact not as claiming any merit for it,) the only great question in which I have ever changed my opinion, is that of the bank of the United States. If the researches of the senator had carried him a little further, he would, by turning over a few more leaves of the same book from which he read my speech, have found that which I made in 1816, in support of the present bank. By the reasons assigned in it for the change of my opinion, I am ready to abide in the judgment of the present generation and of posterity. In 1816, being speaker of the house of representatives, it was perfectly in my power to have said nothing and done nothing, and thus have concealed the change of opinion which my mind had undergone. But I did not choose to remain silent and escape responsibility. I chose publicly to avow my actual conversion. The war and the fatal experience of its disastrous events, had changed me. Mr. Madison, governor Pleasants, and almost all the public men around me, my political friends, had changed their opinions from the same causes.

The power to establish a bank is deduced from that clause of the constitution which confers on congress all powers necessary and proper to carry into effect the enumerated powers. In 1811, I believed a bank of the United States not necessary, and that a safe reliance might be placed on the local banks, in the administration of the fiscal affairs of the government. The war taught us many lessons, and among others demonstrated the necessity of the bank of the United States, to the successful operations of the government. I will not trouble the senate with a perusal of my speech in 1816, but ask its permission to read a few extracts:

‘But how stood the case in 1816, when he was called upon to examine the powers of the general government to incorporate a national bank? A total change of circumstances was presented—events of the utmost magnitude had intervened.

‘A general suspension of specie payments had taken place, and this had led to a train of circumstances of the most alarming nature. He beheld, dispersed over the immense extent of the United States, about three hundred banking institutions, enjoying, in different degrees, the confidence of the public, shaken as to them all, under no direct control of the general government, and subject to no actual responsibility to the state authorities. These institutions were emitting the actual currency of the United States—a currency consisting of paper, on which they neither paid interest nor principal, whilst it was exchanged for the paper of the community, on which both were paid. We saw these institutions, in fact, exercising what had been considered, at all times, and in all countries, one of the highest attributes of sovereignty—the regulation of the current medium of the country. They were no longer competent to assist the treasury, in either of the great operations of collection, deposit or distribution of the public revenues. In fact, the paper which they emitted, and which the treasury, from the force of events, found itself constrained to receive, was constantly obstructing the operations of that department; for it would accumulate where it was not wanted, and could not be used where it was wanted, for the purposes of government, without a ruinous and arbitrary brokerage. Every man who paid to or received from the government, paid or received as much less than he ought to have done, as was the difference between the medium in which the payment was effected and specie. Taxes were no longer uniform. In New England, where specie payments had not been suspended, the people were called upon to pay larger contributions than where they were suspended. In Kentucky as much more was paid by the people, in their taxes, than was paid, for example, in the state of Ohio, as Kentucky paper was worth more than Ohio paper.