Kitabı oku: «Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)», sayfa 58

"Mr. Clay. I stand corrected; I was only imagining what you would have said if you had been there. Then there stood the senator from Georgia [Mr. Cuthbert], conning over in his mind on what point he should make his next attack upon the senator from Kentucky. On yonder ottoman reclined the other senator from Missouri on my left [Mr. Linn], indulging, with smiles on his face, in pleasing meditations on the rise, growth, and future power of his new colony of Oregon. The honorable senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Buchanan], I presume, stood forward as spokesman for his whole party; and, although I cannot pretend to imitate his well-known eloquence, I beg leave to make an humble essay towards what I presume to have been the kind of speech delivered by him on that august occasion:

"May it please your Excellency: A number of your present political friends, late your political opponents, in company with myself, have come to deposit at your Excellency's feet the evidences of our loyalty and devotion; and they have done me the honor to make me the organ of their sentiments and feelings. We are here more particularly to present to your Excellency our grateful and most cordial congratulations on your rescue of the country from a flagrant and alarming violation of the constitution, by the creation of a Bank of the United States; and also our profound acknowledgments for the veto, by which you have illustrated the wisdom of your administration, and so greatly honored yourself. And we would dwell particularly on the unanswerable reasons and cogent arguments with which the notification of the act to the legislature had been accompanied. We had been, ourselves, struggling for days and weeks to arrest the passage of the bill, and to prevent the creation of the monster to which it gives birth. We had expended all our logic, exerted all our ability, employed all our eloquence; but in spite of all our utmost efforts, the friends of your Excellency in the Senate and House of Representatives proved too strong for us. And we have now come most heartily to thank your Excellency, that you have accomplished for us that against your friends, which we, with our most strenuous exertions, were unable to achieve."

After this pleasant impersonation of the Pennsylvania senator, Mr. Clay went on with his own remarks.

"I hope the senator will view with indulgence this effort to represent him, although I am but too sensible how far it falls short of the merits of the original. At all events he will feel that there is not a greater error than was committed by the stenographer of the Intelligencer the other day, when he put into my mouth a part of the honorable senator's speech. I hope the honorable senators on the other side of the chamber will pardon me for having conceived it possible that, amidst the popping of champagne, the intoxication of their joy, the ecstasy of their glorification, they might have been the parties who created a disturbance, of which they never could have been guilty had they waited for their 'sober second thoughts.' I have no doubt the very learned ex-Secretary of the Treasury, who conducted that department with such distinguished ability, and such happy results to the country, and who now has such a profound abhorrence of all the taxes on tea and coffee, though, in his own official reports, he so distinctly recommended them, would, if appointed chairman of the committee, have conducted the investigation with that industry which so eminently distinguishes him; and would have favored the Senate with a report, marked with all his accustomed precision and ability, and with the most perfect lucid clearness."

Mr. Buchanan, who had been made the principal figure in Mr. Clay's imaginary scene, took his satisfaction on the spot, and balanced the account by the description of another night scene, at the east end of the avenue, not entirely imaginary if Dame Rumor may be credited on one side of the question, as well as on the other. He said:

"The honorable senator has, with great power of humor, and much felicity of description, drawn for us a picture of the scene which he supposes to have been presented at the President's house on the ever-memorable evening of the veto. It was a happy effort; but, unfortunately, it was but a fancy sketch – at least so far as I am concerned. I was not there at all upon the occasion. But, I ask, what scenes were enacted on that eventful night at this end of the avenue? The senator would have no cause to complain if I should attempt, in humble imitation of him, to present a picture, true to the life, of the proceedings of himself and his friends. Amidst the dark and lowering clouds of that never-to-be-forgotten night, a caucus assembled in one of the apartments of this gloomy building, and sat in melancholy conclave, deploring the unhappy fate of the whig party. Some rose, and advocated vengeance; 'their voice was still for war.' Others, more moderate, sought to repress the ardent zeal of their fiery compatriots, and advised to peace and prudence. It was finally concluded that, instead of making open war upon Captain Tyler, they should resort to stratagem, and, in the elegant language of one of their number, that they should endeavor 'to head' him. The question was earnestly debated by what means they could best accomplish this purpose; and it was resolved to try the effect of the 'Fiscality' now before us. Unfortunately for the success of the scheme, 'Captain Tyler' was forewarned and forearmed, by means of a private and confidential letter, addressed by mistake to a Virginia coffee-house. It is by means like this that 'enterprises of great pith and moment' often fail. But so desperately intent are the whig party still on the creation of a bank, that one of my friends on this side of the House told me that a bank they would have, though its exchanges should be made in bacon hams, and its currency be small patatoes."

Other senators took the imaginary scene, in which they had been made to act parts, in perfect good temper; and thus the debate on the first Fiscal Bank charter was brought to a conclusion with more amicability than it had been conducted with.

In the course of the consideration of this bill in the Senate, a vote took place which showed to what degree the belief of corrupt practices between the old bank and members of Congress had taken place. A motion was made by Mr. Walker to amend the Fiscal Bank bill so as to prevent any member of Congress from borrowing money from that institution. The motion was resisted by Mr. Clay, and supported by democratic senators on the grounds of the corruptions already practised, and of which repetitions might be expected. Mr. Pierce, of New Hampshire, spoke most fully in favor of the motion, and said:

"It was idle – if it were not offensive, he would say absurd – for gentlemen to discourse here upon the incorruptibility of members of Congress. They were like other men – and no better, he believed no worse. They were subject to like passions, influenced by like motives, and capable of being reached by similar appliances. History affirmed it. The experience of past years afforded humiliating evidence of the fact. Were we wiser than our fathers? Wiser than the most sagacious and patriotic assemblage of men that the world ever saw? Wiser than the framers of the constitution? What protection did they provide for the country against the corruptibility of members of Congress? Why, that no member should hold any office, however humble, which should be created, or the emoluments of which should be increased, during his term of service. How could the influence of a petty office be compared with that of the large bank accommodations which had been granted and would be granted again? And yet they were to be told, that in proposing this guard for the whole people, they were fixing an ignominious brand upon themselves and their associates. It seemed to him, that such remarks could hardly be serious; but whether sincere or otherwise, they were not legislating for themselves – not legislating for individuals – and he felt no apprehension that the mass, whose rights and interests were involved, would consider themselves aggrieved by such a brand.

"The senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Buchanan] while pressing his unanswerable argument in favor of the provision, remarked, that should this bill become a law, no member of Congress 'having a proper sense of delicacy and honor,' with the question of repeal before him, could accept a loan from the Bank. That question of 'delicacy and honor' was one to which he (Mr. P.) did not choose now to address himself. He would, however, be guided by the light of experience, and he would take leave to say, that that light made the path before him, upon this proposition, perfectly luminous. By no vote of his should a provision be stricken from this bill, the omission of which would tend to establish a corrupt and corrupting influence – secret and intangible – in the very bosom of the two Houses whose province and duty it would be to pass upon that great question of repeal. What had taken place was liable to occur again. Those who were now here and those who would succeed to their places, were not more virtuous, not more secure from the approach of venality, not more elevated above the influence of certain appliances, than their predecessors. Well, what did history teach in relation to the course of members of Congress during that most extraordinary struggle between the Bank and the people for supremacy, which convulsed the whole continent from 1831 to 1834?

"He rose chiefly to advert to that page of history, and whether noticed here or not, it would be noticed by his constituents, who, with their children, had an infinitely higher stake in this absorbing question than members of Congress, politicians, or bankers.

"He read from the bank report presented to the Senate in 1834, by the present President of the United States, 'Senate Documents, second session, twenty-third Congress,' p. 320. From that document it appeared that in 1831 there was loaned to fifty-nine members of Congress, the sum of three hundred and twenty-two thousand one hundred and ninety-nine dollars. In 1832, the year when the bank charter was arrested by the veto of that stern old man who occupied the house and hearts of his countrymen, there was loaned to fifty-four members of Congress, the sum of four hundred and seventy-eight thousand and sixty-nine dollars. In 1833, the memorable panic year, there was loaned to fifty-eight members, three hundred and seventy-four thousand seven hundred and sixty-six dollars. In 1834, hope began to decline with the Bank, and so, also, did its line of discounts to members of Congress; but even in that year the loan to fifty-two members amounted to two hundred and thirty-eight thousand five hundred and eighty-six dollars.

"Thus in four years of unparalleled political excitement, growing out of a struggle with the people for the mastery, did that institution grant accommodations to two hundred and twenty-three of the people's representatives, amounting to the vast sum of one million four hundred and thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty dollars. He presented no argument on these facts. He would regard it not merely as supererogation, but an insult to the intelligence of his countrymen. A tribunal of higher authority than the executive and Congress combined, would pass upon the question of 'delicacy and honor,' started by the senator from Pennsylvania, and it would also decide whether in the bank to loan was dangerous or otherwise. He indulged no fears as to the decision of the tribunal in the last resort – the sovereign people."

Mr. Clay remarked that the greater part of these loans were made to members opposed to the bank. Mr. Buchanan answered, no doubt of that. A significant smile went through the chamber, with inquiries whether any one had remained opposed? The yeas and nays were called upon the question – and it was carried; the two Virginia senators, Messrs. Archer and Rives, and Mr. Preston, a Virginian by birth, voting with the democracy, and making the vote 25 yeas to 24 nays. The yeas were: Messrs. Allen, Archer, Benton, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mouton, Nicholson, Pierce, Preston, Rives, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Williams, Woodbury, Wright and Young. The nays were: Messrs. Barrow, Bates, Berrien, Choate, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Dixon, Evans, Graham, Henderson, Huntingdon, Leeds Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Porter, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Tallmadge, White, Woodbridge. This vote, after the grounds on which the question was put, was considered an explicit senatorial condemnation of the bank for corrupt practices with members of Congress.

CHAPTER LXXXI.
SECOND FISCAL AGENT: BILL PRESENTED: PASSED: DISAPPROVED BY THE PRESIDENT

This second attempt at a fiscal bill has two histories – one public and ostensible – the other secret and real: and it is proper to write them both, for their own sakes, and also to show in what manner the government is worked. The public history will be given first, and will be given exclusively from a public source – the debates of Congress. We begin with it as it begins there – an extemporaneous graft upon a neglected bill lying on the table of the House of Representatives. Early in the session a bill had been brought in from a select committee on the "currency," which had not been noticed from the time of its introduction. It seemed destined to sleep undisturbed upon the table to the end of the session, and then to expire quietly upon lapse of time. Soon after the rejection of the first fiscal under the qualified veto of the President, Mr. Sergeant of Pennsylvania moved the House (when in that state which is called Committee of the Whole) to take up this bill for consideration: which was done as moved. Mr. Sergeant then stated that, his intention was to move to amend that bill by striking out the whole of it after the enacting clause, and inserting a new bill, which he would move to have printed. Several members asked for the reading of the new bill, or a statement of its provisions; and Mr. Sergeant, in compliance with these requests, stood up and said:

"That, as several inquiries had been made of him with regard to this bill, he would now proceed to make a short statement, to show in what respects it differed from that recently before this House. He would say, first, that there were two or three verbal errors in this bill, and there were words, in two or three places, which he thought had better have been left out, and which were intended to have been omitted by the committee. There were several gentlemen in the present Congress who entertained extreme hostility to the word 'bank,' and, as far as he was concerned, he felt every disposition to indulge their feelings; and he had therefore endeavored throughout this bill to avoid using the word 'bank.' If that word anywhere remained as applicable to the being it was proposed to create by this law, let it go out – let it go out. Now the word 'corporation' sounded well, and he was glad to perceive it gave pleasure to the House. At all events, they had a new word to fight against. Now the difference between this bill and that which passed this House some days ago, would be seen by comparison. The present differed from the other principally in three or four particulars, and there were some other parts of the bill which varied, in minor particulars, from that which had been before the House a few days ago. Those differences gentlemen would have no difficulty in discovering and understanding when the bill should have been printed. He would now proceed to answer the inquiries of gentlemen in reference to this bill. Mr. S. then stated the following as the substantial points of difference between the two bills:

"1. The capital in the former bill was thirty millions, with power to extend it to fifty millions. In this bill twenty-one millions, with power to extend it to thirty-five millions. 2. The former bill provided for offices of discount and deposit. In this there are to be agencies only. 3. The dealings of the corporation are to be confined to buying and selling foreign bills of exchange, including bills drawn in one State or territory, and payable in another. There are to be no discounts. 4. The title of the corporation is changed."

This was Friday, the 20th of August. The next day – the bill offered in amendment by Mr. Sergeant having been printed and the House gone into committee – that member moved that all debate upon it in committee of the whole should cease at 4 o'clock that afternoon, and then proceed to vote upon the amendments which might be offered, and report those agreed upon to the House. And having moved this in writing, he immediately moved the previous question upon it. This was sharp practice, and as new as sharp. It was then past 12 o'clock. Such rapidity of proceeding was a mockery upon legislation, and to expose it as such, Mr. Roosevelt of New York moved to amend the time by substituting, instanter, for 4 o'clock, remarking that they might as well have no time for discussion as the time designated. Several members expressing themselves to the same effect, Mr. Sergeant extended the time to 4 o'clock on Monday evening. The brevity of the time was still considered by the minority, and justly, as a mockery upon legislation; and their opinions to that effect were freely expressed. Mr. Cave Johnson asked to be excused from voting on Mr. Sergeant's resolution, giving for the reason that the amendment was a new bill just laid upon the table of members, and that it would be impossible for them to act understandingly upon it in the short time proposed. Mr. Charles Brown of Pennsylvania also asked to be excused from voting, saying that the amendment was a bill of thirty-eight printed pages – that it had only been laid upon their tables ten minutes when the motion to close the debate at 4 o'clock was made – and that it was impossible to act upon it with the care and consideration due to a legislative act, and to one of this momentous importance, and which was to create a great fiscal corporation with vast privileges, and an exclusive charter for twenty years. Mr. Rhett of South Carolina asked to be in like manner excused, reducing his reasons to writing, in the form of a protest. Thus:

"1. Because the rule by which the resolution is proposed is a violation of the spirit of the Constitution of the United States, which declares that the freedom of speech and of the press shall not be abridged by any law of Congress. 2. Because it destroys the character of this body as a deliberative assembly: a right to deliberate and discuss measures being no longer in Congress, but with the majority only. 3. Because it is a violation of the rights of the people of the United States, through their representatives, inherited from their ancestors, and enjoyed and practised time immemorial, to speak to the taxes imposed on them, when taxes are imposed. 4. Because by the said rule, a bill may be taken up in Committee of the Whole, be immediately reported to the House, and, by the aid of the previous question, be passed into a law, without one word of debate being permitted or uttered. 5. Because free discussion of the laws by which the people are governed, is not only essential to right legislation, but is necessary to the preservation of the constitution, and the liberties of the people; and to fear or supress it is the characteristic of tyrannies and tyrants only. 6. Because the measure proposed to be forced through the House within less than two days' consideration is one which deeply affects the integrity of the constitution and the liberties of the people; and to pass it with haste, and without due deliberation, would evince a contemptuous disregard of either, and may be a fatal violation of both."

Besides all other objections to this rapid legislation, it was a virtual violation of the rules of the House, made under the constitution, to prevent hasty and inconsiderate, or intemperate action; and which requires a bill to be read three times, each time on a different day, and to be voted upon each time. Technically an amendment, though an entire new bill, is not a bill, and therefore, is not subject to these three readings and votings: substantially and truly, such an amendment is a bill; and the reason of the rule would require it to be treated as such.

Other members asked to be excused from voting; but all being denied that request by an inexorable majority, Mr. Pickens of South Carolina stood up and said: "It is now manifest that the House does not intend to excuse any member from voting. And as enough has been done to call public attention to the odious resolution proposed to be adopted, our object will have been attained: and I respectfully suggest to our friends to go no further in this proceeding!" Cries of "agreed! agreed!" responded to this appeal; and the motion of Mr. Sergeant was adopted. He, himself, then spoke an hour in support of the new bill – one hour of the brief time which was allowed for discussion. Mr. Wise occupied the remainder of the evening against the bill. On Monday, on resuming its consideration, Mr. Turney of Tennessee moved to strike out the enacting clause – which, if done, would put an end to the bill. The motion failed. Some heated discussion took place, which could hardly be called a debate on the bill; but came near enough to it to detect its fraudulent character. It was the old defunct Bank of the United States, in disguise, to come to life again in it. That used-up concern was then in the hands of justice, hourly sued upon its notes, and the contents collected upon execution; and insolvency admitted. It could not be named in any charter: no reference could be made to it by name. But there was a provision in the amended bill to permit it to slip into full life, and take the whole benefit of the new charter. Corporations were to be allowed to subscribe for the stock: under that provision she could take all the stock – and be herself again. This, and other fraudulent provisions were detected: but the clock struck four! and the vote was taken, and the bill passed – 125 to 94. The title of the original bill was then amended to conform to its new character; and, on the motion of Mr. Sergeant was made to read in this wise: "An act to provide for the better collection, safe keeping, and disbursement of the public revenue, by means of a corporation to be styled the Fiscal Corporation of the United States." Peals of laughter saluted the annunciation of this title; and when it was carried to the Senate, as it immediately was, for the concurrence of that body, and its strange title was read out, ridicule was already lying in wait for it; and, under the mask of ridicule, an attack was made upon its real character, as the resuscitation of Mr. Biddle's bank: and Mr. Benton exclaimed —

"Heavens what a name! long as the moral law – half sub-treasury, and half national bank – and all fraudulent and deceptive, to conceal what it is; and entirely too long. The name is too long. People will never stand it. They cannot go through all that. We must have something shorter – something that will do for every day use. Corporosity! that would be a great abridgment; but it is still too long. It is five syllables, and people will not go above two syllables, or three at most, and often hang at one, in names which have to be incontinently repeated. They are all economical at that, let them be as extravagant as they may be in spending their money. They will not spend their breath upon long names which have to be repeated every day. They must have something short and pointed; and, if you don't give it to them, they will make it for themselves. The defunct Fiscal Bank was rapidly taking the title of fiscality; and, by alliteration, rascality; and if it had lived, would soon have been compendiously and emphatically designated by some brief and significant title. The Fiscal Corporation cannot expect to have better luck. It must undergo the fate of all great men and of all great measures, overburdened with titles – it must submit to a short name. There is much virtue in a name; and the poets tell us there are many on whose conception Phœbus never smiled, and at whose birth no muse, or grace, was present. In that predicament would seem to be this intrusive corporosity, which we have received from the other House, and sent to our young committee, and which has mutation of title without alteration of substance, and without accession of euphony, or addition of sense. Some say a name is nothing – that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. So it will; and a thorn by any other name would stick as deep. And so of these fiscals, whether to be called banks or corporations. They will still be the same thing – a thorn in our side – but a short name they must have. This corporosity must retrench its extravagance of title.

"I go for short names, and will give reasons for it. The people will have short names, although they may spoil a fine one; and I will give you an instance. There was a most beautiful young lady in New Orleans some years ago, as there always has been, and still are many such. She was a Creole, that is to say, born in this country, of parents from Europe. A gentleman who was building a superb steamboat, took it into his head to honor this young lady, by connecting her name with his vessel; so he bestowed upon it the captivating designation of La Belle Creole. This fine name was painted in golden letters on the sides of his vessel; and away she went, with three hundred horse power, to Kentucky and Ohio. The vessel was beautiful, and the name was beautiful, and the lady was beautiful; but all the beauty on earth could not save the name from the catastrophe to which all long titles are subjected. It was immediately abbreviated, and, in the abbreviation, sadly deteriorated. At first, they called her the bell – not the French belle, which signifies fine or beautiful – but the plain English bell, which in the Holy Scriptures, was defined to be a tinkling cymbal. This was bad enough; but worse was coming. It so happens that the vernacular pronunciation of creole, in the Kentucky waters, is cre-owl; so they began to call this beautiful boat the cre-owl! but things did not stop here. It was too extravagant to employ two syllables when one would answer as well, and be so much more economical; so the first half of the name was dropped, and the last retained; and thus La Belle Creole – the beautiful creole – sailed up and down the Mississippi all her life by the name, style, title, and description of, The Owl! (Roars of laughing in the Senate, with exclamations from several, that it was a good name for a bank – that there was an Owl-Creek Bank in Ohio once, now dead and insolvent, but, in its day, as good as the best.)

"Mr. B. continued. I do not know whether owl will do for this child of long name, and many fathers; but we must have a name, and must continue trying till we get one. Let us hunt far and wide. Let us have recourse to the most renowned Æsop and his fables, and to that one of his fables which teaches us how an old black cat succeeded in getting at the rats again after having eaten up too many of them, and become too well known, under her proper form, to catch any more. She rolled herself over in a meal tub – converted her black skin into white – and walked forth among the rats as a new and innocent animal that they had never seen before. All were charmed to see her! but a quick application of teeth and claws to the throats and bellies of the rats, let them see that it was their old acquaintance, the black cat; and that whitening the skin did not alter the instincts of the animal, nor blunt the points of its teeth and claws. The rats, after that, called her the meal-tub cat, and the mealy cat. May we not call this corporosity the meal-tub bank? A cattish name would certainly suit it in one particular; for, like a cat, it has many lives, and a cat, you know, must be killed nine times before it will die; so say the traditions of the nursery; and of all histories the traditions of children are the most veracious. They teach us that cats have nine lives. So of this bank. It has been killed several times, but here it is still, scratching, biting, and clawing. Jackson killed it in 1832; Tyler killed it last week. But this is only a beginning. Seven times more the Fates must cut the thread of its hydra life before it will yield up the ghost.

"The meal tub! No insignificant, or vulgar name. It lives in history, and connects its fame with kings and statesmen. We all know the Stuarts of England – an honest and bigoted race in the beginning, but always unfortunate in the end. The second Charles was beset by plots and cabals. There were many attempts, or supposed attempts to kill him; many plots against him, and some very ridiculous; among the rest one which goes by the name of the meal-tub plot; because the papers which discovered it were found in the meal-tub where the conspirators, or their enemies, had hid them.

"Sir, I have given you a good deal of meal this morning; but you must take more yet. It is a fruitful theme, and may give us a good name before we are done with it. I have a reminiscence, as the novel writers say, and I will tell it. When a small boy, I went to school in a Scotch Irish neighborhood, and learnt many words and phrases which I have not met with since, but which were words of great pith and power; among the rest shake-poke. (Mr. Archer: I never heard that before.) Mr. Benton: but you have heard of poke. You know the adage: do not buy a pig in the poke; that is to say, in the bag; for poke signifies bag, or wallet, and is a phrase much used in the north of England, and among the Scotch Irish in America. A pig is carried to market in a poke, and if you buy it without taking it out first, you may be 'taken in.' So corn is carried to a mill in a poke, and when brought home, ground into meal, the meal remains in the poke, in the houses of poor families, until it is used up. When the bag is nearly empty, it is turned upside down, and shaken; and the meal that comes out is called the shake-poke, that is to say, the last shake of the bag. By an easy and natural metaphor, this term is also applied to the last child that is born in a family; especially if it is puny or a rickety concern. The last child, like the last meal, is called a shake-poke; and may we not call this fiscalous corporation a shake-poke also, and for the same reason? It is the last – the last at all events for the session! it is the last meal in their bag – their shake-poke! and it is certainly a rickety concern.

"I do not pretend to impose a name upon this bantling; that is a privilege of paternity, or of sponsorship, and I stand in neither relation to this babe. But a name of brevity – of brevity and significance – it must have; and, if the fathers and sponsors do not bestow it, the people will: for a long name is abhorred and eschewed in all countries. Remember the fate of John Barebone, the canting hypocrite in Cromwell's time. He had a very good name, John Barebone; but the knave composed a long verse, like Scripture, to sanctify himself with it, and intituled himself thus: – 'Praise God, Barebone, for if Christ had not died for you, you would be damned, Barebone.' Now, this was very sanctimonious; but it was too long – too much of a good thing – and so the people cut it all off but the last two words, and called the fellow 'damned Barebone,' and nothing else but damned Barebone, all his life after. So let this corporosity beware: it may get itself damned before it is done with us, and Tyler too."

The first proceeding in the Senate was to refer this bill to a committee, and Mr. Clay's select committee would naturally present itself as the one to which it would go: but he was too much disgusted at the manner in which his own bill had been treated to be willing to take any lead with respect to this second one; and, in fact, had so expressed himself in the debate on the veto message. A motion was made to refer it to another select committee, the appointing of which would be in the President of the Senate – Mr. Southard, of New Jersey. Mr. Southard, like Mr. Sergeant, was the fast friend of the United States Bank, to be revived under this bill; and like him conducted the bill to the best advantage for that institution. Mr. Sergeant had sprung the bill, and rushed it through, backed by the old bank majority, with a velocity which distanced shame in the disregard of all parliamentary propriety and all fair legislation. He had been the attorney of the bank for many years, and seemed only intent upon its revivification – no matter by what means. Mr. Southard, bound by the same friendship to the bank, seemed to be animated by the same spirit, and determined to use his power in the same way. He appointed exclusively the friends of the bank, and mostly of young senators, freshly arrived in the chamber. Mr. King, of Alabama, the often President of the Senate pro tempore, and the approved expounder of the rules, was the first – and very properly the first – to remark upon the formation of this one-sided committee; and to bring it to the attention of the Senate. He exposed it in pointed terms.