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

Then it is to depend upon the secretary of the treasury whether we have a government bank or not! We are delivered over to the tender mercies of his legislation, in the form of the regulations which he may choose to issue and publish! And the extraordinary power is vested in him, if any dare violate his regulations, of denouncing the severe penalty of receiving payment ‘in any other mode and place which he may deem proper.’ Now, sir, between a draft on the receivers-general at St. Louis, and at New York, there will be a difference at all times of at least two per centum; and at some periods a much greater difference. Is it fitting; is it in accordance with the genius of free institutions, with the spirit of a country of laws, to confide such a power to a mere secretary of the treasury? What a power is it not to reward political friends or punish political enemies.

But, sir, I look at the matter of this restriction in a higher point of view. You cannot maintain it; why should you? You have provided all the means, as you profess to believe, of perfect security for the custody of the public money in these public depositories. Why should you require the holder of a government draft, often ignorant of the legislation of the secretary of the treasury, to present it for payment by a given day, under a severe penalty depending upon his discretion? Will not the inconvenience to the community, of a precise day and a short day, for the presentation of the draft, be vastly greater than that of the public in retaining the money for an indefinite day, until it suits the holder’s convenience to demand payment? And will you not be tempted to keep possession of the specie for the incidental advantages which it affords? Ah! sir; are we to overlook the possible uses to which, in corrupt days of the republic, this dormant specie maybe applied in the crisis of a political election, or the crisis of the existence of a party in power? Congress will be called upon, imperatively called upon, by the people, to abolish all restrictions which the secretary of the treasury may promulgate for the speedy presentation for payment of government drafts. The wants of the people, and the necessity of the country for a paper medium, possessing a uniform value, and capable of general circulation, will demand itat your hands, and you will be most ready to grant the required boon. We should regard the system according to its true and inherent character, and not be deceived by provisions, inevitably temporary in their nature, which the policy or the prudence of its authors may throw around it. The greatest want of this country, at the present period, in its circulating medium, is some convertible paper, which, at every extremity of the union, will command the confidence of the public, and circulate without depreciation. Such a paper will be supplied in the form of these government drafts.

But if the restriction which I have been considering could be enforced and continued, it would not alter the bank character of this measure. Bank or no bank, is a question not depending upon the duration of time which its issues remain out, but upon the office which they perform whilst out. The notes of the bank of the United States of Pennsylvania are not deprived of their character of composing a part of the circulating medium of the country, although they might be returned to the bank in some ten or twenty days after their issue.

I know that it has been argued, and will be argued again, that at all times, since the commencement of the government, the practice of the treasury has been, to issue its drafts upon the public depositaries; that these drafts have not heretofore circulated as money; and that if they now do, it is an incident which attaches no blame to the government.

But heretofore these drafts were issued upon banks, and the holders of them passed to their credit with the banks or received payment in bank notes. The habit of the country—and habit was a great thing—was to use bank notes. Moreover, there were bank notes of every kind in use; those which were local and those which were general in their credit and circulation. Now, having no bank of the United States in existence, there are no bank notes which maintain the same value, and command the public confidence, throughout the union. You create, therefore, an inexorable necessity for the use of government drafts as a medium of general circulation, and argue from a state of things when no such necessity existed!

The protestation of the friends of the bill in this chamber, the denunciations of its opponents, and the just horror which the people entertain of a government bank, may prompt the secretary of the treasury, slowly and slyly, to lift the veil which masks its true features. A government bank may not suddenly burst upon us, but there it is, embodied in this bill; and it is not the least objection to the measure that it depends upon the discretion of a secretary of the treasury to retard or accelerate the commencement of its operation at his pleasure. Let the reëlection of the present chief magistrate be secured, and you will soon see the bank disclosing its genuine character. But, thanks be to God, there is aday of reckoning at hand. All the signs of the times clearly indicate its approach; and on the fourth day of March, in the year of our Lord 1841, I trust that the long account of the abuses and corruptions of this administration, in which this measure will be a conspicuous item, will be finally and for ever adjusted.

Mr. President, who is to have the absolute control of this government bank? We have seen, within a few years past, a most extraordinary power asserted and exercised. We have seen in a free, representative, republican government, the power claimed by the executive, and it is now daily enforced, of dismissing all officers of the government without any other cause than a mere difference of opinion. No matter what may be the merits of the officer; no matter how long and how faithfully he may have served the public; no matter what sacrifices he may have made; no matter how incompetent from age and poverty, he may be to gain a subsistence for himself and family, he is driven out to indigence and want for no other reason than that he differs in opinion with the president on the sub-treasury, or some other of the various experiments upon the prosperity of this people. But this is not all; if you call upon the president to state the reasons which induced him, in any particular instance, to exercise this tremendous power of dismission, wrapping himself up in all the dignity and arrogance of royal majesty, he refuses to assign any reason whatever, and tells you it is his prerogative! that you have no right to interrogate him as to the motives which have prompted him in the exercise of any of his constitutional powers! Nay, more; if you apply to a subordinate—a mere minion of power—to inform you why he has dismissed any of his subordinates, he replies, that he will not communicate the grounds of his action. I have understood that in more cases than one, the person acting as postmaster-general, has refused, this session, to inform members of congress of the grounds on which he has dismissed deputy postmasters. We have witnessed the application of this power to a treasurer of the United States recently, without the pretence of his failure to discharge his public duties, all of which he performed with scrupulous exactness, honor, and probity.

And what, sir, is the consequence of a power so claimed, and so exercised? The first is, that, in a country of constitution and laws, the basis and genius of which are, that there is and should be the most perfect responsibility on the part of every, even the highest functionary, here is a vast power, daily exercised with the most perfect impunity, and without the possibility of arraigning a guilty chief magistrate. For how can he be impeached or brought to trial if he will not disclose, and you have no adequate means of ascertaining the grounds on which he has acted?

The next consequence is, that as all the officers of government, who hold their offices by the tenure to which I allude, hold them at the president’s mercy, and without the possibility of finding anyredress, if they are dismissed without cause, they become his pliant creatures, and feel that they are bound implicitly to obey his will.

Now, sir, put this government bank into operation, and who are to be charged with the administration of its operations? The secretary of the treasury, the treasurer of the United States, the register and comptroller of the treasury, and the receivers-general, and so forth; every one of them holding his office at the pleasure and mercy of the president; every one of them, perhaps, depending for his bread upon the will of the president; every one of them taught, by sad experience, to know that his safest course is to mould his opinions, and shape his conduct, so as to please the president; every one of them knowing perfectly, that, if dismissed, he is without the possibility of any remedy or redress whatever. In such a deplorable state of things, this government bank will be the mere bank of the president of the United States. He will be the president, cashier, and teller. Yes, sir, this complete subjection of all the subordinate officers of the government to the will of the president, will make him sole director, president, cashier, and teller of this government bank. The so much dreaded union of the purse and the sword will at last be consummated, and the usurpation, by which the public deposits, in 1837, were removed by the advancement of the one, and the removal of another secretary of the treasury, will not only be finally legalized and sanctioned, but the enormity of the danger of that precedent will be transcended by a deliberate act of the congress of the United States!