Kitabı oku: «Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)», sayfa 41

The deposits are restored, so far as the vote of the Senate goes; and if not restored in fact, it will be because policy, and new schemes forbid it. And what new scheme can we have? A nondescript, hermaphrodite, Janus-faced fiscality? or a third edition of General Hamilton's bank of 1791? or a bastard compound, the unclean progeny of both? Which will it be? Hardly the first named. It comes forth with the feeble and rickety symptoms which announce an unripe conception, and an untimely death. Will it be the second? It will be that, or worse. And where will the late flatterers – the present revilers of Mr. Biddle – the authors equally of the bank that is ruined, and of the one that is to be created: where will they find better men to manage the next than they had to manage the last? I remember the time when the vocabulary of praise was exhausted on Mr. Biddle – when in this chamber, and out of it, the censer, heaped with incense, was constantly kept burning under his nose: when to hint reproach of him was to make, if not a thousand chivalrous swords leap from their scabbards, at least to make a thousand tongues, and ten thousand pens, start up to defend him. I remember the time when a senator on this floor, and now on it (Mr. Preston of South Carolina), declared in his place that the bare annunciation of Mr. Biddle's name as Secretary of the Treasury, would raise the value of the people's property one hundred millions of dollars. My friend here on my right (pointing to Senator Woodbury) was the Secretary of the Treasury; and the mere transposition of names and places – the mere substitution of Biddle for Woodbury – was to be worth one hundred millions of dollars to the property of the country! What flattery could rise higher than that? Yet this man, once so lauded – once so followed, flattered, and courted – now lies condemned by all his former friends. They cannot now denounce sufficiently the man who, for ten years past, they could not praise enough: and, after this, what confidence are we to have in their judgments? What confidence are we to place in their new bank, and their new managers, after seeing such mistakes about the former?

Let it not be said that this bank went to ruin since it became a State institution. The State charter made no difference in its character, or in its management: and Mr. Biddle declared it to be stronger and safer without the United States for a partner than with it. The mortal wounds were all given while it was a national institution; and the late report of the stockholders shows not one species of offence, the cotton speculations alone excepted, which was not shown by Mr. Clayton's report of 1832; and being shown, was then defended by the whole power of those who are now cutting loose from the old bank, and clamoring for a new one. Not an act now brought to light, save and except the cotton operation, not even that for which Reuben M. Whitney was crushed to death, and his name constituted the synonyme of perjury and infamy for having told it; not an act now brought to light which was not shown to exist ten years ago, and which was not then defended by the whole federal party; so that the pretension that this institution did well as a national bank, and ill as a State one, is as unfounded in fact, as it is preposterous and absurd in idea. The bank was in the high road to ruin – in the gulf of insolvency – in the slough of crime and corruption – when the patriot Jackson signed the veto, and ordered the removal of the deposits; and nothing but these two great acts saved the people from the loss of the forty millions of dollars which have now fallen upon the stockholders and the note holders, and from the shame of seeing their government the slave and instrument of the bank. Jackson saved the people from this loss, and their government from this degradation; and for this he is now pursued with the undying vengeance of those whose schemes of plunder and ambition were balked by him.

Wise and prudent was the conduct of those who refused to recharter the second Bank of the United States. They profited by the error of their friends who refused to recharter the first one. These latter made no preparations for the event – did nothing to increase the constitutional currency – and did not even act until the last moment. The renewed charter was only refused a few days before the expiration of the existing charter, and the federal government fell back upon the State banks, which immediately sunk under its weight. The men of 1832 acted very differently. They decided the question of the renewal long before the expiration of the existing charter. They revived the gold currency, which had been extinct for thirty years. They increased the silver currency by repealing the act of 1819 against the circulation of foreign silver. They branched the mints. In a word, they raised the specie currency from twenty millions to near one hundred millions of dollars; and thus supplied the country with a constitutional currency to take the place of the United States Bank notes. The supply was adequate, being nearly ten times the average circulation of the national bank. That average circulation was but eleven millions of dollars; the gold and silver was near one hundred millions. The success of our measures was complete. The country was happy and prosperous under it; but the architects of mischief – the political, gambling, and rotten part of the banks, headed by the Bank of the United States, and aided by a political party – set to work to make panic and distress, to make suspensions and revulsions, to destroy trade and business, to degrade and poison the currency; to harass the country until it would give them another national bank: and to charge all the mischief they created upon the democratic administration. This has been their conduct; and having succeeded in the last presidential election, they now come forward to seize the spoils of victory in creating another national bank, to devour the substance of the people, and to rule the government of their country. Sir, the suspension of 1837, on the part of the Bank of the United States and its confederate banks and politicians, was a conspiracy and a revolt against the government. The present suspension is a continuation of the same revolt by the same parties. Many good banks are overpowered by them, and forced into suspension; but with the Bank of the United States, its affiliated banks, and its confederate politicians, it is a revolt and a conspiracy against the government.

Sir, it is now nightfall. We are at the end of a long day when the sun is more than fourteen hours above the horizon, and when a suffocating heat oppresses and overpowers the Senate. My friends have moved adjournments: they have been refused. I have been compelled to speak now, or never, and from this commencement we may see the conclusion. Discussion is to be stifled; measures are to be driven through; and a mutilated Congress, hastily assembled, imperfectly formed, and representing the census of 1830, not of 1840, is to manacle posterity with institutions which are as abhorent to the constitution as they are dangerous to the liberties, the morals, and the property of the people. A national bank is to be established, not even a simple and strong bank like that of General Hamilton, but some monstrous compound, born of hell and chaos, more odious, dangerous, and terrible than any simple bank could be. Posterity is to be manacled, and delivered up in chains to this deformed monster; and by whom? By a rump Congress, representing an expired census of the people, in the absence of members from States which, if they had their members here, would still have but the one-third part of their proper weight in the councils of the Union. The census of 1840 gives many States, and Missouri among the rest, three times their present relative weight; and no permanent measure ought to be discussed until this new relative weight should appear in Congress. Why take the census every ten years, if an expiring representation at the end of the term may reach over, and bind the increased numbers by laws which claim immunity from repeal, and which are rushed through without debate? Am I to submit to such work? No, never! I will war against the bank you may establish, whether a simple or a compound monster; I will war against it by every means known to the constitution and the laws. I will vote for the repeal of its charter as General Harrison and others voted for the repeal of the late bank charter in 1819. I will promote quo warranto's and sci. fa.'s against it. I will oppose its friends and support its enemies, and work at its destruction in every legal and constitutional way. I will war upon it while I have breath; and if I incur political extinction in the contest, I shall consider my political life well sold – sold for a high price – when lost in such a cause.

But enough for the present. The question now before us is the death of the sub-treasury. The discussion of the substitute is a fair inquiry in this question. We have a right to see what is to follow, and to compare it with what we have. But gentlemen withhold their schemes, and we strike in the dark. My present purpose is to vindicate the independent treasury system – to free it from a false character – to show it to be what it is, nothing but the revival of the two great acts of September the 1st and September the 2d, 1789, for the collection, safe keeping, and disbursement of the public moneys, under which this government went into operation; and under which it operated safely and successfully until General Hamilton overthrew it to substitute the bank and state system of Sir Robert Walpole, which has been the curse of England, and towards which we are now hurrying again with headlong steps and blindfold eyes.

CHAPTER LXVI.
THE BANKRUPT ACT: WHAT IT WAS: AND HOW IT WAS PASSED

It has been seen in Mr. Tyler's message that, as a measure of his own administration, he would not have convened Congress in extraordinary session; but this having been done by his predecessor, he would not revoke his act. It was known that the call had been made at the urgent instance of Mr. Clay. That ardent statesman had so long seen his favorite measures baffled by a majority opposition to them in one House or the other, and by the twelve years presidency of General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, that he was naturally now impatient to avail himself of the advantage of having all the branches of the government in their favor. He did so without delay. Mr. Tyler had delivered his message recommending the measures which he deemed proper for the consideration of Congress: Mr. Clay did the same – that is to say, recommend his list of measures to Congress also, not in the shape of a message, but in the form of a resolve, submitted to the Senate; and which has been given. A bankrupt act was not in his programme, nor in the President's message; and it was well known, and that by evidence less equivocal than its designed exclusion from his list of measures, that Mr. Clay was opposed to such a bill. But parties were so nearly balanced in the Senate, a deduction of two or three from the one side and added to the other would operate the life or death of most important measures, in the event that a few members should make the passage of a favorite measure the indispensable condition of their vote for some others which could not be carried without it. This was the case with the bank bill, and the distribution bill. A bank was the leading measure of Mr. Clay's policy – the corner stone of his legislative edifice. It was number two in his list: it was number one in his affections and in his parliamentary movement. He obtained a select committee on the second day of the session, to take into consideration the part of the President's message which related to the currency and the fiscal agent for the management of the finances; but before that select committee could report a bill, Mr. Henderson, of Mississippi, taking the shortest road to get at his object, asked and obtained leave to bring in a bill to establish a system of bankruptcy. This measure, then, which had no place in the President's message, or in Mr. Clay's schedule, and to which he was averse, took precedence on the calendar of the vital measure for which the extra session was chiefly called; and Mr. Henderson being determinedly supported by his colleague, Mr. Walker, and a few other resolute senators with whom the bankrupt act was an overruling consideration, he was enabled to keep it ahead, and coerce support from as many averse to it as would turn the scale in its favor. It passed the Senate, July 24th, by a close vote, 26 to 23. The yeas were:

"Messrs. Barrow, Bates, Berrien, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Dixon, Evans, Henderson, Huntington, Kerr, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Mouton, Phelps, Porter, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Tallmadge, Walker, White, Williams, Woodbridge, Young.

"Nays – Messrs. Allen, Archer, Bayard, Benton, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, Graham, King, Linn, McRoberts, Nicholson, Pierce, Prentiss, Rives, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Sturgeon, Tappan, Woodbury, Wright."

The distribution bill was a leading measure in Mr. Clay's policy: it ranked next after the national bank. He had also taken it into his own care, and had introduced a bill on leave for the purpose at an early day. A similar bill was also introduced in the House of Representatives. There was no willing majority for the bankrupt bill in either House; but the bank bill and the land bill were made to pass it. The ardent friends of the bankrupt bill embargoed both the others until their favorite measure was secure. They were able to defeat the other two, and determined to do so if they did not get their own measure; and they did get it – presenting the spectacle of a bill, which had no majority in either House, forcing its own passage, and controlling the fate of two others – all of them measures of great national concern.

The bankrupt bill had passed the Senate ahead of the bank bill, and also of the distribution bill, and went to the House of Representatives, where the majority was against it. It seemed doomed in that House. The same bill had originated in that body; but lay upon the table without consideration. The President, beset by a mass of debtors who had repaired to Washington to promote the passage of the bill, sent in a special message in its favor; but without effect. The House bill slept on the table: the Senate bill arrived there, and was soon put to rest upon the same table. Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, a friend of Mr. Clay, had moved to lay it on the table; and the motion prevailed by a good majority – 110 to 97. Information of this vote instantly flew to the Senate. One of the senators, intent upon the passage of the bill, left his seat and went down to the House; and when he returned he informed the writer of this View that the bill would pass – that it would be taken off the table, and put through immediately: and such was the fact. The next day the bill was taken up and passed – the meagre majority of only six for it. The way in which this was done was made known to the writer of this View by the senator who went down to attend to the case when the bill was laid on the table: it was simply to let the friends of the bank and distribution bills know that these measures would be defeated if the bankrupt bill was not passed – that there were enough determined on that point to make sure: and, for the security of the bankrupt bill, it was required to be passed first.

The bill had passed the House with an amendment, postponing the commencement of its operation from November to February; and this amendment required to be communicated to the Senate for its concurrence – which was immediately done. This amendment was a salvo to the consciences of members for their forced votes: it was intended to give Congress an opportunity of repealing the act before it took effect; but the friends of the bill were willing to take it that way – confident that they could baffle the repeal for some months, and until those most interested, had obtained the relief they wanted.

At the time that this amendment was coming up to the Senate that body was engaged on the distribution bill, the debate on the bank veto message having been postponed by the friends of the bank to make way for it. August the 18th had been fixed for that day – 12 o'clock the hour. The day and the hour, had come; and with them an immense crowd, and an excited expectation. For it was known that Mr. Clay was to speak – and to speak according to his feelings – which were known to be highly excited against Mr. Tyler. In the midst of this expectation and crowd, and to the disappointment of every body, Mr. Berrien rose and said that – "Under a sense of duty, he was induced to move that the consideration of the executive veto message on the fiscal bank bill be postponed until to-morrow, 12 o'clock." – Mr. Calhoun objected to this postponement. "The day, he said, had been fixed by the friends of the bank bill. The President's message containing his objections to it had now been in possession of the Senate, and on the tables of members for two days. Surely there had been sufficient time to reflect upon it: yet now it was proposed still longer to defer action upon it. He asked the senator from Georgia, who had made the motion, to assign some reason for the proposed delay." The request of Mr. Calhoun for a reason, was entirely parliamentary and proper; and in fact should have been anticipated by giving the reason with the motion – as it was not deferential to the Senate to ask it to do a thing without a reason, especially when the thing to be done was contrary to an expressed resolve of the Senate, and took members by surprise who came prepared to attend to the appointed business, and not prepared to attend to another subject. Mr. Berrien declined to give a reason, and said that – "When the senator from South Carolina expressed his personal conviction that time enough had been allowed for reflection on the message, he expressed what would no doubt regulate his personal conduct; but when he himself stated that, under a sense of duty, he had asked for further time, he had stated his own conviction in regard to the course which ought to be pursued. Senators would decide for themselves which opinion was to prevail." – Mr. Calhoun rejoined in a way to show his belief that there was a secret and sinister cause for this reserve, so novel and extraordinary in legislative proceedings. He said – "Were the motives such as could not be publicly looked at? were they founded on movements external to that chamber? It was certainly due to the Senate that a reason should be given. It was quite novel to refuse it. Some reason was always given for a postponement. He had never known it to be otherwise." – Mr. Berrien remained unmoved by this cogent appeal, and rejoined – "The senator from South Carolina was at liberty to suggest whatever he might think proper; but that he should not conclude him (Mr. Berrien), as having made a motion here for reasons which he could not disclose." – Mr. Calhoun then said that, "this was a very extraordinary motion, the votes of senators upon it ought to be recorded: he would therefore move for the yeas and nays," – which were ordered, and stood thus: Yeas: Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Berrien, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton (Thomas of Delaware), Dixon, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntingdon, Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Tallmadge, White, and Woodbridge, 29 – the supporters of the bank all voting for the postponement, their numbers swelled a little beyond their actual strength by the votes of Mr. Rives, and a few other whigs. The nays were: Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, A. O. P. Nicholson, Pierce, Sevier, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Williams, Woodbury, Wright, and Young – 21. It was now apparent that the postponement of the bank question was a concerted measure of the whig party – that Mr. Berrien was its organ in making the motion – and that the reason for it was a party secret which he was not at liberty to disclose. Events, however, were in progress to make the disclosure.

The distribution bill was next in order, and during its consideration Mr. White, of Indiana, made a remark which attracted the attention of Mr. Benton. Deprecating further debate, as a useless waste of time, Mr. White wished discussion to cease, and the vote be taken – "as he hoped, as well as believed, that the bill would pass, and not alone, but be accompanied by other measures." This remark from Mr. White gave Mr. Benton something to go upon; and he immediately let out what was on his mind.

He thanked the senator from Indiana for his avowal; it was a confirmation of what he well knew before – that measures, at this extraordinary session, were not passed or rejected upon their merits, but made to depend one upon another, and the whole upon a third! It was all bargain and sale. All was conglomerated into one mass, and must go together or fall together. This was the decree out of doors. When the sun dips below the horizon, a private Congress is held, the fate of the measure is decided; a bundle are tied together; and while one goes ahead as a bait, another is held back as a rod.

Mr. Linn, of Missouri, still more frank than his colleague, stigmatized the motive for postponement, and the means that were put in practice to pass momentous bills which could not pass on their own merits; and spoke out without disguise:

"These artifices grow out of the system adopted for carrying through measures that never could be carried through other than by trick and art. The majority which by force, not by argument, have to carry their measures, must meet in secret – concoct their measures in conclave – and then hold every member of the party bound to support what is thus agreed upon – a master spirit leading all the while. There had been enough of falsehood, misrepresentation and delusion. The presidential election had contained enough of it, without adding to the mass at this session. The country was awake to these impositions, and required only to be informed of the movements of the wire-workers to know how to appreciate their measures. And the people should be informed. As far as it was possible for him and his friends to lay that information before the country, it should be done. Every man in the community must be told how this bank bill, which was intended to rule the country with a moneyed despotism for years to come, had been passed – how a national debt was entailed upon the country – how this bankrupt bill was forced through, as he (Mr. Linn) now understood it was, by a majority of five votes, in the other end of the Capitol, many of its whig opponents dodging behind the columns; and how this land distribution bill was now in the course of being passed, and the tricks resorted to to effect its passage. It was all part and parcel of the same system which was concocted in Harrisburg, wrought with such blind zeal at the presidential election, and perfected by being compressed into a congressional caucus, at an extraordinary called, but uncalled-for, session."

The distribution bill had been under debate for an hour, and Mr. King, of Alabama, was on the floor speaking to it, when the clerk of the House of Representatives appeared at the door of the Senate Chamber with the bankrupt bill, and the amendments made by the House – and asking the concurrence of the Senate. Still standing on his feet, but dropping the line of his argument, Mr. King exclaimed:

"That, sir, is the bill. There it is sir. That is the bill which is to hurry this land distribution bill to its final passage, without either amendments or debate. Did not the senator know that yesterday, when the bankrupt bill was laid on the table by a decided vote in the other House, the distribution bill could not, by any possibility then existing, be passed in this House? But now the case was altered. A reconsideration of the vote of yesterday had taken place in the other House, and the bankrupt bill was now returned to the Senate for concurrence; after which it would want but the signature of the Executive to become a law. But how had this change been so suddenly brought about? How, but by putting on the screws? Gentlemen whose States cried aloud for the relief of a bankrupt law, were told they could not have it unless they would pay the price – they must pass the distribution bill, or they should have no bankrupt bill. One part of the bargain was already fulfilled: the bankrupt bill was passed. The other part of the bargain is now to be consummated: the distribution bill can pass now without further delay. He (Mr. King) had had the honor of a seat in this chamber for many years, but never during that time had he seen legislation so openly and shamefully disgraced by a system of bargain and sale. This extra session of Congress would be long remembered for the open and undisguised extent to which this system had been carried."

Incontinently the distribution bill was laid upon the table, and the bankrupt bill was taken up. This was done upon the motion of Mr. Walker, who gave his reasons, thus:

"He rose not to prolong the debate on the distribution bill, but to ask that it might be laid on the table, that the bill to establish a general bankrupt law, which had just been received from the House, might be taken up, and the amendment, which was unimportant, might be concurred in by the Senate. He expressed his ardent joy at the passage of this bill by this House, which was so imperiously demanded as a measure of great relief to a suffering community, which he desired should not be held in suspense another night; but that they should immediately take up the amendments, and act on them. For this purpose he moved to lay the distribution bill on the table."

Mr. Linn asked for the yeas and nays, that it might be seen how senators voted in this rigadoon legislation, in which movements were so rapid, so complicated, and so perfectly performed. They were ordered, and stood: Yeas – Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Berrien, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Dixon, Evans, Henderson, Huntington, Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Porter, Preston, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Tallmadge, Walker, White, and Woodbridge – 26. Nays – Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Clayton, Cuthbert, Fulton, Graham, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, Pierce, Sevier, Sturgeon, Tappan, Williams, Woodbury, Wright, and Young – 21. So that the whole body of the friends to the distribution bill, voted to lay it down to take up the bankrupt bill, as they had just voted to lay down the bank bill to take up the distribution. The three measures thus travelled in company, but bankrupt in the lead – for the reason, as one of its supporters told Mr. Benton, that they were afraid it would not get through at all if the other measures got through before it. The bankrupt bill having thus superseded the distribution bill, as itself had superseded the bank bill, Mr. Walker moved a concurrence in the amendment. Mr. Buchanan intimated to Mr. Walker that he was taken in – that the postponement was to enable Congress to repeal the bill before it took effect; and, speaking in this sense, said:

"From the tone of the letters he had received from politicians differing with him, he should advise his friend from Mississippi [Mr. Walker], not to be quite so soft as, in his eagerness to pass this bill, to agree to this amendment, postponing the time for it to take effect to February, as it would be repealed before its operation commenced; although it was now made a price of the passage of the distribution bill. He felt not a particle of doubt but there would be a violent attempt to repeal it next session."

Mr. Walker did not defend the amendment, but took it rather than, by a non-concurrence, to send the bill back to the House, where its friends could not trust it again. He said – "When his friend from Pennsylvania spoke of his being 'soft,' he did not know whether he referred to his head or his heart; but he could assure him he was not soft enough to run the chance of defeating the bill by sending it back to the House." – Mr. Calhoun did not concur with his friend from Pennsylvania, that there would be any effort to repeal this bill. It would be exceedingly popular at its first "go off," and if this bill passed, he hoped that none of his friends would attempt to repeal it. It would, if permitted to work, produce its legitimate effects; and was enough to destroy any administration. He saw that this was a doomed administration. It would not only destroy them, but blow them "sky high."

This was the only instance in which Mr. Calhoun was known to express a willingness that a bad measure should stand because it would be the destruction of its authors; and on this occasion it was merely the ebullition of an excited feeling, as proved when the question of repeal came on at the next session – in which he cordially gave his assistance. The amendment was concurred in without a division, the adversaries of the bill being for the postponement in good faith, and its friends agreeing to it for fear of something worse. There had been an agreement that the three measures were to pass, and upon that agreement the bank bill was allowed to go down to the House before the bankrupt bill was out of it; but the laying that bill on the table raised an alarm, and the friends of the bankrupt required the others to be stopped until their cherished measure was finished: and that was one of the reasons for postponing the debate on the bank veto message which could not be disclosed to the Senate. The amendment of the House being agreed to, there was no further vote to be taken on the bill; but a motion was made to suppress it by laying it on the table. That motion brought out a clean vote for and against the bill – 23 to 26. The next day it received the approval of the President, and became a law.