is past, as well as to what is to come. We ought to see clearly of what it is the consummation, and of what it is the commencement.

When our honored fellow-citizen, Mr. John Quincy Adams, was supplanted in the Presidential chair, some nine years ago, by General Jackson, the currency of the United States was not surpassed in convenience, uniformity, or soundness, by that of any other country on the face of the globe. It enjoyed unbounded confidence. It afforded universal satisfaction. From no quarter of the Union, from neither political party, was there a breath breathed against it. The party by whom the change of administration was effected, had not been slow in hunting up all manner of imaginary grievances which they might promise and pledge themselves to hunt down. They complained of the extravagance of Mr. Adams, and they have shown the justice of that complaint by doubling, and in some years trebling, the annual amount of the national expenses. They complained of political corruption, and they have since given us plainly to perceive what they understood by political purity. They pledged themselves to "a thorough and searching reform," and the thousands of political adversaries who have been punished, and the tens of thousands of political friends who have been rewarded, through the medium of the appointing power, have clearly manifested what that thorough and searching reform was intended to be. But of the currency of the country they made no complaint. For that they promised nothing. And most fortunate would it have been, if with regard to it they had performed nothing.

But not such was their wisdom. Not such our fate. For the first year or two, however, every thing went on well and quietly in this respect. Indeed, it will be found that in more than one of their early Executive messages, not a few phrases of compliment and eulogy were rounded on the goodness of the circulating medium, and on the services of its great regulator, the Bank of the United States. Particular praise was bestowed on the Bank for its disinterested efforts in enabling the Government to complete the payment of the national debt. But in a moment, and without a note of warning, a change came over the spirit of

from him in person, and infinitely farther removed in character from the utmost reach of any shafts which he could throw — and partly upon one who, though personally present, and compelled to submit to whatever words or looks it might please the gentleman to throw at him, was entirely prevented, by his official position, from resisting, resenting, or in any way noticing

them.

Sir, I will confess that on the occasion to which I allude, I felt in no small degree complimented at being coupled with the great Massachusetts statesman in the censure of the gentleman from Gloucester. But this was by no means the only occasion on which I have been subjected to his attacks, and heretofore I have had no such good company to console me, while my hands have been equally tied behind me. The gentleman best knows his own motives and purposes, but it cannot have escaped observation, that from the beginning of the session to this hour, he has omitted no opportunity which has occurred, or which could be created, to cast censure and contumely upon the Chair. For the first time, Sir, I am now in a condition to retort. But let me assure the House that I do not intend to avail myself of my position for any such purpose. Certainly, Sir, I have not risen with any such intent, and I hope to sit down without having been betrayed into any such act. Placed by the indulgence of the House in a station where it is my duty to check personality and enforce decorum in others, I will not voluntarily exhibit a violation of order in my own person. I will not be provoked into a personal altercation with the gentleman from Gloucester. He has brandished his lance, and shaken his red flag, and played the Matadore in vain. His taunts and provocations I give to the wind. To his arguments, if he has uttered any, and I should chance to meet them along my track, I will pay the respect of a passing notice. And now, Sir, to the subject.

It is one, I need hardly say, of no small compass or comprehension. It calls upon us to look both before and after. The measure to which these resolutions relate, is at once a goal and a starting point in national affairs. It is the end of one series. of experiments, and it is the beginning of another. And in order to understand its real nature, we ought to look to what

is past, as well as to what is to come.

We ought to see

clearly of what it is the consummation, and of what it is the commencement.

When our honored fellow-citizen, Mr. John Quincy Adams, was supplanted in the Presidential chair, some nine years ago, by General Jackson, the currency of the United States was not surpassed in convenience, uniformity, or soundness, by that of any other country on the face of the globe. It enjoyed unbounded confidence. It afforded universal satisfaction. From no quarter of the Union, from neither political party, was there a breath breathed against it. The party by whom the change of administration was effected, had not been slow in hunting up all manner of imaginary grievances which they might promise and pledge themselves to hunt down. They complained of the extravagance of Mr. Adams, and they have shown the justice of that complaint by doubling, and in some years trebling, the annual amount of the national expenses. They complained of political corruption, and they have since given us plainly to perceive what they understood by political purity. They pledged themselves to "a thorough and searching reform," and the thousands of political adversaries who have been punished, and the tens of thousands of political friends who have been rewarded, through the medium of the appointing power, have clearly manifested what that thorough and searching reform was intended to be. But of the currency of the country they made no complaint. For that they promised nothing. And most fortunate would it have been, if with regard to it they had performed nothing.

But not such was their wisdom. Not such our fate. For the first year or two, however, every thing went on well and quietly in this respect. Indeed, it will be found that in more than one of their early Executive messages, not a few phrases of compliment and eulogy were rounded on the goodness of the circulat ing medium, and on the services of its great regulator, the Bank of the United States. Particular praise was bestowed on the Bank for its disinterested efforts in enabling the Government to complete the payment of the national debt. But in a moment, and without a note of warning, a change came over the spirit of

the administration. The currency, but yesterday deemed sound and healthful, was to-day discovered to be diseased and rotten. The Bank, but yesterday commended and eulogized, was to-day pronounced unconstitutional, corrupt, dangerous to liberty. In wilful disregard of the existing and long-established rates of domestic exchanges, it was declared to have failed in affording a uniform currency, and with a hardihood of assertion which excited derision throughout the country, was proclaimed an unsafe depository of the public moneys.

Whether this extraordinary transition from praise to scandal, from admiration to aversion, from commendation to condemnation, was the result of that sordid repulse which the administration had sustained in certain notorious proposals to the branch bank in New Hampshire, those who know any thing of the history of political coquetry and caprice can judge as well as I. But the facts we all know. The institution was doomed to be at once discarded from further employment. The renewal of its charter was vetoed. The public treasure was removed from its vaults. And war to the knife was declared against it, and all concerned with it. Its officers were denounced. Its President was served up in the government journals under every odious nickname and epithet;—all his acts set in the Executive note-book, learned and conned by rote, and the greater part of every Executive message devoted to their recital to the people. To use the language of Mr. Senator King of Georgia, who, be it remembered, only parted company with the administration at the late extra session of Congress, "if Mr. Biddle expanded, he was bribing the country; if he contracted he was ruining the country; if he imported specie, he was speculating on the country; if he exported specie, he was conspiring against the country; if he stood up, he was impudent; if he sat down, he was suspicious; if he lay down, he was useless; and whenever he made a move, whether he crossed above or below the Execu tive, he equally mudded the waters." But enough of Mr. Biddle. The removal of the deposits was of course succeeded by their distribution among the selected State banks. With this distribution went letters from the Secretary of the Treasury, enjoining upon the new recipients to loan their deposits liberally

among the people. And this injunction was more than fulfilled. Then followed the importation of gold to the amount of thirty or forty millions of dollars, partly on account of foreign claims, and partly as a matter of outright purchase and trade by the Executive or his agents. Then came the clumsy, if not wilfully harassing, execution of the surplus distribution act, to which the President had given at length a "reluctant assent." And last of all, to close this strange, eventful history, was issued that well-known Treasury order, by which all payments for public lands were to be made in gold and silver.

These, Mr. Chairman, are the Executive measures which have been the heralds and harbingers of the Sub-Treasury system. This is that series of experiments by which its approach has been announced, and its way prepared before it. But there have been other simultaneous events in the affairs of the country. There have been mercantile distresses and pecuniary pressures, thickly crowded along the whole period in which these measures have been executed. There has been a total derangement of the currency and exchanges, a perfect prostration of credit, and, to describe all in one phrase, a general suspension of payments throughout the country. And there is no more important inquiry in the discussion in which we are engaged, than whether these events also are to be comprised in the catalogue of Executive acts, or, in other words, whether the national administration is directly or indirectly responsible for their occur

rence.

Some of the gentlemen, Sir, with whom I am accustomed to act here and elsewhere, have, in a previous debate, exceedingly qualified their reference of these events to Executive action. From any and all such qualification I desire to dissent. For one, I desire to be understood, now and at all times, to charge the whole of the late crisis-all about it that has been peculiarly aggravated and overwhelming, all about it that has distinguished it from the thousand and one temporary calamities which have chequered the history of commerce in all ages and countries, all about it that has made it the crisis that it has been and still is, to these measures of the national administration. Contractions and expansions, extensions and revulsions, are, I