Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

CHAPTER VIII.

EXTRA SESSION: MESSAGE, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The first session of the twenty-fifth Congress, convened upon the proclamation of the President, to meet an extraordinary occasion, met on the first Monday in September, and consisted of the following members:

New Hampshire – Henry Hubbard and Franklin Pierce.

Maine – John Ruggles and Ruel Williams.

Vermont – Samuel Prentiss and Benjamin Swift.

Massachusetts – Daniel Webster and John Davis.

Rhode Island – Nehemiah R. Knight and Asher Robbins.

Connecticut – John M. Niles and Perry Smith.

New York – Silas Wright and Nathaniel P. Tallmadge.

New Jersey – Garret D. Wall and Samuel L. Southard.

Delaware – Richard H. Bayard and Thomas Clayton.

Pennsylvania – James Buchanan and Samuel McKean.

Maryland – Joseph Kent and John S. Spence.

Virginia – William C. Rives and William H. Roane.

North Carolina – Bedford Brown and Robert Strange.

South Carolina – John C. Calhoun and Wm. Campbell Preston.

Georgia – John P. King and Alfred Cuthbert.

Alabama – Wm. Rufus King and Clement C. Clay.

Mississippi – John Black and Robert J. Walker.

Louisiana – Robert C. Nicholas and Alexander Mouton.

Tennessee – Hugh L. White and Felix Grundy.

Kentucky – Henry Clay and John Crittenden.

Arkansas – Ambrose H. Sevier and William S. Fulton.

Missouri – Thomas H. Benton and Lewis F. Linn.

Illinois – Richard M. Young and John M. Robinson.

Indiana – Oliver H. Smith and John Tipton.

Ohio – William Allen and Thomas Morris.

Michigan – Lucius Lyon and John Norvell.

Maine – George Evans, John Fairfield, Timothy J. Carter, F. O. J. Smith, Thomas Davee, Jonathan Cilley, Joseph C. Noyes, Hugh J. Anderson.

New Hampshire – Samuel Cushman, James Farrington, Charles G. Atherton, Joseph Weeks, Jared W. Williams.

Massachusetts – Richard Fletcher, Stephen C. Phillips, Caleb Cushing, Wm. Parmenter, Levi Lincoln, George Grinnell, jr., George N. Briggs, Wm. B. Calhoun, Nathaniel B. Borden, John Q. Adams, John Reed, Abbott Lawrence, Wm. S. Hastings.

Rhode Island – Robert B. Cranston, Joseph L. Tillinghast.

Connecticut – Isaac Toucey, Samuel Ingham, Elisha Haley, Thomas T. Whittlesey, Launcelot Phelps, Orrin Holt.

Vermont – Hiland Hall, William Slade, Heman Allen, Isaac Fletcher, Horace Everett.

New York – Thomas B. Jackson, Abraham Vanderveer, C. C. Cambreleng, Ely Moore, Edward Curtis, Ogden Hoffman, Gouverneur Kemble, Obadiah Titus, Nathaniel Jones, John C. Broadhead, Zadoc Pratt, Robert McClelland, Henry Vail, Albert Gallup, John I. DeGraff, David Russell, John Palmer, James B. Spencer, John Edwards, Arphaxad Loomis, Henry A. Foster, Abraham P. Grant, Isaac H. Bronson, John H. Prentiss, Amasa J. Parker, John C. Clark, Andrew D. W. Bruyn, Hiram Gray, William Taylor, Bennett Bicknell, William H. Noble, Samuel Birdsall, Mark H. Sibley, John T. Andrews, Timothy Childs, William Patterson, Luther C. Peck, Richard P. Marvin, Millard Fillmore, Charles F. Mitchell.

New Jersey – John B. Aycrigg, John P. B. Maxwell, William Halstead, Jos. F. Randolph, Charles G. Stratton, Thomas Jones Yorke.

Pennsylvania – Lemuel Paynter, John Sergeant, George W. Toland, Charles Naylor, Edward Davies, David Potts, Edward Darlington, Jacob Fry, jr., Matthias Morris, David D. Wagener, Edward B. Hubley, Henry A. Muhlenberg, Luther Reilly, Henry Logan, Daniel Sheffer, Chas. McClure, Wm. W. Potter, David Petriken, Robert H. Hammond, Samuel W. Morris, Charles Ogle, John Klingensmith, Andrew Buchanan, T. M. T. McKennan, Richard Biddle, William Beatty, Thomas Henry, Arnold Plumer.

Delaware – John J. Milligan.

Maryland – John Dennis, James A. Pearce, J. T. H. Worthington, Benjamin C. Howard, Isaac McKim, William Cost Johnson, Francis Thomas, Daniel Jenifer.

Virginia – Henry A. Wise, Francis Mallory, John Robertson, Charles F. Mercer, John Taliaferro, R. T. M. Hunter, James Garland, Francis E. Rives, Walter Coles, George C. Dromgoole, James W. Bouldin, John M. Patton, James M. Mason, Isaac S. Pennybacker, Andrew Beirne, Archibald Stuart, John W. Jones, Robert Craig, Geo. W. Hopkins, Joseph Johnson, Wm. S. Morgan.

North Carolina – Jesse A. Bynum, Edward D. Stanley, Charles Shepard, Micajah T. Hawkins, James McKay, Edmund Deberry, Abraham Rencher, William Montgomery, Augustine H. Shepherd, James Graham, Henry Connor, Lewis Williams, Samuel T. Sawyer.

South Carolina – H. S. Legare, Waddy Thompson, Francis W. Pickens, W. K. Clowney, F. H. Elmore, John K. Griffin, R. B. Smith, John Campbell, John P. Richardson.

Georgia – Thomas Glascock, S. F. Cleveland, Seaton Grantland, Charles E. Haynes, Hopkins Holsey, Jabez Jackson, Geo. W. Owens, Geo. W. B. Townes, W. C. Dawson.

Tennessee – Wm. B. Carter, A. A. McClelland, Joseph Williams, (one vacancy,) H. L. Turney, Wm. B. Campbell, John Bell, Abraham P. Maury, James K. Polk, Ebenezer J. Shields, Richard Cheatham, John W. Crockett, Christopher H. Williams.

Kentucky – John L. Murray, Edward Rumsey, Sherrod Williams, Joseph R. Underwood, James Harlan, John Calhoun, John Pope, Wm. J. Graves, John White, Richard Hawes, Richard H. Menifee, John Chambers, Wm. W. Southgate.

Ohio – Alexander Duncan, Taylor Webster, Patrick G. Goode, Thomas Corwin, Thomas L. Hamer, Calvary Morris, Wm. K. Bond, J. Ridgeway, John Chaney, Samson Mason, J. Alexander, jr., Alexander Harper, D. P. Leadbetter, Wm. H. Hunter, John W. Allen, Elisha Whittlesey, A. W. Loomis, Matthias Shepler, Daniel Kilgore.

Alabama – Francis S. Lyon, Dixon H. Lewis, Joab Lawler, Reuben Chapman, J. L. Martin.

Indiana – Ratliff Boon, John Ewing, William Graham, George H. Dunn, James Rariden, William Herrod, Albert S. White.

Illinois – A. W. Snyder, Zadoc Casey, Wm. L. May.

Louisiana – Henry Johnson, Eleazer W. Ripley, Rice Garland.

Mississippi – John F. H. Claiborne, S. H. Gholson.

Arkansas – Archibald Yell.

Missouri – Albert G. Harrison, John Miller.

Michigan – Isaac E. Crary.

Florida – Charles Downing.

Wisconsin – George W. Jones.

In these ample lists, both of the Senate and of the House, will be discovered a succession of eminent names – many which had then achieved eminence, others to achieve it: – and, besides those which captivate regard by splendid ability, a still larger number of those less brilliant, equally respectable, and often more useful members, whose business talent performs the work of the body, and who in England are well called, the working members. Of these numerous members, as well the brilliant as the useful, it would be invidious to particularize part without enumerating the whole; and that would require a reproduction of the greater part of the list of each House. Four only can be named, and they entitled to that distinction from the station attained, or to be attained by them: – Mr. John Quincy Adams, who had been president; Messrs. James K. Polk, Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce, who became presidents. In my long service I have not seen a more able Congress; and it is only necessary to read over the names, and to possess some knowledge of our public men, to be struck with the number of names which would come under the description of useful or brilliant members.

The election of speaker was the first business of the House; and Mr. James K. Polk and Mr. John Bell, both of Tennessee, being put in nomination, Mr. Polk received 116 votes; and was elected – Mr. Bell receiving 103. Mr. Walter S. Franklin was elected clerk.

The message was delivered upon receiving notice of the organization of the two Houses; and, with temperance and firmness, it met all the exigencies of the occasion. That specie order which had been the subject of so much denunciation, – the imputed cause of the suspension, and the revocation of which was demanded with so much pertinacity and such imposing demonstration, – far from being given up was commended for the good effects it had produced; and the determination expressed not to interfere with its operation. In relation to that decried measure the message said:

"Of my own duties under the existing laws, when the banks suspended specie payments, I could not doubt. Directions were immediately given to prevent the reception into the Treasury of any thing but gold and silver, or its equivalent; and every practicable arrangement was made to preserve the public faith, by similar or equivalent payments to the public creditors. The revenue from lands had been for some time substantially so collected, under the order issued by the directions of my predecessor. The effects of that order had been so salutary, and its forecast in regard to the increasing insecurity of bank paper had become so apparent, that, even before the catastrophe, I had resolved not to interfere with its operation. Congress is now to decide whether the revenue shall continue to be so collected, or not."

This was explicit, and showed that all attempts to operate upon the President at that point, and to coerce the revocation of a measure which he deemed salutary, had totally failed. The next great object of the party which had contrived the suspension and organized the distress, was to extort the re-establishment of the Bank of the United States; and here again was an equal failure to operate upon the firmness of the President. He reiterated his former objections to such an institution – not merely to the particular one which had been tried – but to any one in any form, and declared his former convictions to be strengthened by recent events. Thus:

"We have seen for nearly half a century, that those who advocate a national bank, by whatever motive they may be influenced, constitute a portion of our community too numerous to allow us to hope for an early abandonment of their favorite plan. On the other hand, they must indeed form an erroneous estimate of the intelligence and temper of the American people, who suppose that they have continued, on slight or insufficient grounds, their persevering opposition to such an institution; or that they can be induced by pecuniary pressure, or by any other combination of circumstances, to surrender principles they have so long and so inflexibly maintained. My own views of the subject are unchanged. They have been repeatedly and unreservedly announced to my fellow-citizens, who, with full knowledge of them, conferred upon me the two highest offices of the government. On the last of these occasions, I felt it due to the people to apprise them distinctly, that, in the event of my election, I would not be able to co-operate in the re-establishment of a national bank. To these sentiments, I have now only to add the expression of an increased conviction, that the re-establishment of such a bank, in any form, whilst it would not accomplish the beneficial purpose promised by its advocates, would impair the rightful supremacy of the popular will; injure the character and diminish the influence of our political system; and bring once more into existence a concentrated moneyed power, hostile to the spirit, and threatening the permanency, of our republican institutions."

Having noticed these two great points of pressure upon him, and thrown them off with equal strength and decorum, he went forward to a new point – the connection of the federal government with any bank of issue in any form, either as a depository of its moneys, or in the use of its notes; – and recommended a total and perpetual dissolution of the connection. This was a new point of policy, long meditated by some, but now first brought forward for legislative action, and cogently recommended to Congress for its adoption. The message, referring to the recent failure of the banks, took advantage of it to say:

"Unforeseen in the organization of the government, and forced on the Treasury by early necessities, the practice of employing banks, was, in truth, from the beginning, more a measure of emergency than of sound policy. When we started into existence as a nation, in addition to the burdens of the new government, we assumed all the large, but honorable load, of debt which was the price of our liberty; but we hesitated to weigh down the infant industry of the country by resorting to adequate taxation for the necessary revenue. The facilities of banks, in return for the privileges they acquired, were promptly offered, and perhaps too readily received, by an embarrassed treasury. During the long continuance of a national debt, and the intervening difficulties of a foreign war, the connection was continued from motives of convenience; but these causes have long since passed away. We have no emergencies that make banks necessary to aid the wants of the Treasury; we have no load of national debt to provide for, and we have on actual deposit a large surplus. No public interest, therefore, now requires the renewal of a connection that circumstances have dissolved. The complete organization of our government, the abundance of our resources, the general harmony which prevails between the different States, and with foreign powers, all enable us now to select the system most consistent with the constitution, and most conducive to the public welfare."

This wise recommendation laid the foundation for the Independent Treasury – a measure opposed with unwonted violence at the time, but vindicated as well by experience as recommended by wisdom; and now universally concurred in – constituting an era in our financial history, and reflecting distinctive credit on Mr. Van Buren's administration. But he did not stop at proposing a dissolution of governmental connection with these institutions; he went further, and proposed to make them safer for the community, and more amenable to the laws of the land. These institutions exercised the privilege of stopping payment, qualified by the gentle name of suspension, when they judged a condition of the country existed making it expedient to do so. Three of these general suspensions had taken place in the last quarter of a century, presenting an evil entirely too large for the remedy of individual suits against the delinquent banks; and requiring the strong arm of a general and authoritative proceeding. This could only be found in subjecting them to the process of bankruptcy; and this the message boldly recommended. It was the first recommendation of the kind, and deserves to be commemorated for its novelty and boldness, and its undoubted efficiency, if adopted. This is the recommendation:

"In the mean time, it is our duty to provide all the remedies against a depreciated paper currency which the constitution enables us to afford. The Treasury Department, on several former occasions, has suggested the propriety and importance of a uniform law concerning bankruptcies of corporations, and other bankers. Through the instrumentality of such a law, a salutary check may doubtless be imposed on the issues of paper money, and an effectual remedy given to the citizen, in a way at once equal in all parts of the Union, and fully authorized by the constitution."

A bankrupt law for banks! That was the remedy. Besides its efficacy in preventing future suspensions, it would be a remedy for the actual one. The day fixed for the act to take effect would be the day for resuming payments, or going into liquidation. It would be the day of honesty or death to these corporations; and between these two alternatives even the most refractory bank would choose the former, if able to do so.

The banks of the District of Columbia, and their currency, being under the jurisdiction of Congress, admitted a direct remedy in its own legislation, both for the fact of their suspension and the evil of the small notes which they issued. The forfeiture of the charter, where the resumption did not take place in a limited time, and penalties on the issue of the small notes, were the appropriate remedies; – and, as such were recommended to Congress.

There the President not only met and confronted the evils of the actual suspension as they stood, but went further, and provided against the recurrence of such evils thereafter, in four cardinal recommendations: 1, never to have another national bank; 2, never to receive bank notes again in payment of federal dues; 3, never to use the banks again for depositories of the public moneys; 4, to apply the process of bankruptcy to all future defaulting banks. These were strong recommendations, all founded in a sense of justice to the public, and called for by the supremacy of the government, if it meant to maintain its supremacy; but recommendations running deep into the pride and interests of a powerful class, and well calculated to inflame still higher the formidable combination already arrayed against the President, and to extend it to all that should support him.

The immediate cause for convoking the extraordinary session – the approaching deficit in the revenue – was frankly stated, and the remedy as frankly proposed. Six millions of dollars was the estimated amount; and to provide it neither loans nor taxes were proposed, but the retention of the fourth instalment of the deposit to be made with the States, and a temporary issue of treasury notes to supply the deficiency until the incoming revenue should replenish the treasury. The following was that recommendation:

"It is not proposed to procure the required amount by loans or increased taxation. There are now in the treasury nine millions three hundred and sixty-seven thousand two hundred and fourteen dollars, directed by the Act of the 23d of June, 1836, to be deposited with the States in October next. This sum, if so deposited, will be subject, under the law, to be recalled, if needed, to defray existing appropriations; and, as it is now evident that the whole, or the principal part of it, will be wanted for that purpose, it appears most proper that the deposits should be withheld. Until the amount can be collected from the banks, treasury notes may be temporarily issued, to be gradually redeemed as it is received."

Six millions of treasury notes only were required, and from this small amount required, it is easy to see how readily an adequate amount could have been secured from the deposit banks, if the administration had foreseen a month or two beforehand that the suspension was to take place. An issue of treasury notes, being an imitation of the exchequer bill issues of the British government, which had been the facile and noiseless way of swamping that government in bottomless debt, was repugnant to the policy of this writer, and opposed by him: but of this hereafter. The third instalment of the deposit, as it was called, had been received by the States – received in depreciated paper, and the fourth demanded in the same. A deposit demanded! and claimed as a debt! – that is to say: the word "deposit" used in the act admitted to be both by Congress and the States a fraud and a trick, and distribution the thing intended and done. Seldom has it happened that so gross a fraud, and one, too, intended to cheat the constitution, has been so promptly acknowledged by the high parties perpetrating it. But of this also hereafter.

The decorum and reserve of a State paper would not allow the President to expatiate upon the enormity of the suspension which had been contrived, nor to discriminate between the honest and solvent banks which had been taken by surprise and swept off in a current which they could not resist, and the insolvent or criminal class, which contrived the catastrophe and exulted in its success. He could only hint at the discrimination, and, while recommending the bankrupt process for one class, to express his belief that with all the honest and solvent institutions the suspension would be temporary, and that they would seize the earliest moment which the conduct of others would permit, to vindicate their integrity and ability by returning to specie payments.

CHAPTER IX.

ATTACKS ON THE MESSAGE: TREASURY NOTES

Under the first two of our Presidents, Washington, and the first Mr. Adams, the course of the British Parliament was followed in answering the address of the President, as the course of the sovereign was followed in delivering it. The Sovereign delivered his address in person to the two assembled Houses, and each answered it: our two first Presidents did the same, and the Houses answered. The purport of the answer was always to express a concurrence, or non-concurrence with the general policy of the government as thus authentically exposed; and the privilege of answering the address laid open the policy of the government to the fullest discussion. The effect of the practice was to lay open the state of the country, and the public policy, to the fullest discussion; and, in the character of the answer, to decide the question of accord or disaccord – of support or opposition – between the representative and the executive branches of the government. The change from the address delivered in person, with its answer, to the message sent by the private secretary, and no answer, was introduced by Mr. Jefferson, and considered a reform; but it was questioned at the time, whether any good would come of it, and whether that would not be done irregularly, in the course of the debates, which otherwise would have been done regularly in the discussion of the address. The administration policy would be sure to be attacked, and irregularly, in the course of business, if the spirit of opposition should not be allowed full indulgence in a general and regular discussion. The attacks would come, and many of Mr. Jefferson's friends thought it better they should come at once, and occupy the first week or two of the session, than to be scattered through the whole session and mixed up with all its business. But the change was made, and has stood, and now any bill or motion is laid hold of, to hang a speech upon, against the measures or policy of an administration. This was signally the case at this extra session, in relation to Mr. Van Buren's policy. He had staked himself too decisively against too large a combination of interests to expect moderation or justice from his opponents; and he received none. Seldom has any President been visited with more violent and general assaults than he received, almost every opposition speaker assailing some part of the message. One of the number, Mr. Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, made it a business to reply to the whole document, formally and elaborately, under two and thirty distinct heads – the number of points in the mariner's compass: each head bearing a caption to indicate its point: and in that speech any one that chooses, can find in a condensed form, and convenient for reading, all the points of accusation against the democratic policy from the beginning of the government down to that day.

Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster assailed it for what it contained, and for what it did not – for its specific recommendations, and for its omission to recommend measures which they deemed necessary. The specie payments – the disconnection with banks – the retention of the fourth instalment – the bankrupt act against banks – the brief issue of treasury notes; all were condemned as measures improper in themselves and inadequate to the relief of the country: while, on the other hand, a national bank appeared to them to be the proper and adequate remedy for the public evils. With them acted many able men: – in the Senate, Bayard, of Delaware, Crittenden, of Kentucky, John Davis, of Massachusetts, Preston, of South Carolina, Southard, of New Jersey, Rives, of Virginia: – in the House of Representatives, Mr. John Quincy Adams, Bell, of Tennessee, Richard Biddle, of Pennsylvania, Cushing, of Massachusetts, Fillmore, of New York, Henry Johnson, of Louisiana, Hunter and Mercer, of Virginia, John Pope, of Kentucky, John Sargeant, Underwood of Kentucky, Lewis Williams, Wise. All these were speaking members, and in their diversity of talent displayed all the varieties of effective speaking – close reasoning, sharp invective, impassioned declamation, rhetoric, logic.

On the other hand was an equal array, both in number and speaking talent, on the other side, defending and supporting the recommendations of the President: – in the Senate, Silas Wright, Grundy, John M. Niles, King, of Alabama, Strange, of North Carolina, Buchanan, Calhoun, Linn, of Missouri, Benton, Bedford Brown, of North Carolina, William Allen, of Ohio, John P. King, of Georgia, Walker, of Mississippi: – in the House of Representatives, Cambreleng, of New York, Hamer, of Ohio, Howard and Francis Thomas, of Maryland, McKay, of North Carolina, John M. Patton, Francis Pickens.