34 
 B4 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 MR BENTON, OF MISSOURI, 
 
 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 27, 1835, 
 
 [IS RESOLUTION TO EXPUNGE FROM THE SENATE JOURNAL 
 THE RESOLUTION CONDEMNATORY OF THE PRESIDENT, 
 ADOPTED BY THE SENATE, MARCH 28, 1834. 
 
 I 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 PRINTED BY BtAIR AND RIVE 8. 
 
 1835. 
 
FRED LOCKLEY 
 
 RARE WESTERN BOOKS 
 
 4227 S. E. Stark St. 
 PORTLAND, ORE. 
 
 7 
 
., 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. BENTON, OF MISSOURI, 
 
 IN SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 27, 1835. 
 
 EXPURGATION OF THE SENATE JOURNAL. 
 
 The resolution offered by Mr. BENTOUT on the 
 18th instant was read by the Secretary: 
 
 "Rtsolved, That the resolution adopted by the 
 Senate on the 28th day of March, in the year 1834, 
 in the following words Resolved, Tliut the Pre 
 sident, in the lite Executive proceedings in relation 
 to the public revenue, has assumed up xi himself au 
 thority and power nut conferred by the Constitution 
 and laws, but in derogation of both, be, aud the 
 same hereby is ordered to be expunged from thr: 
 journals of th.^ Senate; because the said resolu 
 tion is illegal and unjust, of evil example, indefi 
 nite and vague, expressing- a criminal charge with 
 out specification; and was irregularly and uncon 
 stitutionally adopted by the Senate, in subversion 
 of the rights of defence Which belong to an ac 
 cused and impeachable officer; and at a time, and 
 under circumstances to endanger the political 
 rights, aivl to injure the pecuniary interests of the 
 people of the United States." 
 
 thoroughly satisfied that that was the proper mode 
 of proseecling in this c*se. ^or the criminating 
 resolution which he wished to get rid of, combined 
 all the characteristics of a case which requ red era 
 sure, obliteration, blotting out; for it was a case, as 
 he believed, of the exercise of power without au 
 thority, without even jurisdiction; illegal, irregu 
 lar and unjust. Other modes of annulling the 
 resolution, as rescinding, reversing, repea ing, 
 could not be proper in such a case; for they would 
 imply a rightful jurisdiction, a liwful authority, a 
 legal action, though an erroneous judgment. All 
 that he denied. He denied the authority of the 
 Senate to pass such a resolution at all; and he af 
 firmed that it was unjust, and contrary to the truth, 
 as well as contrary to law. This being his view 
 of the resolution, he held that the true and proper 
 course, the parliamentary course of proceeding in 
 such a case, was to expunge it. 
 
 But, said Mr. B. it is objected that the Senate 
 
 Mr.BENTONthenrose,andaddressedtheSei,ate| has no right to expunge any thing from its Journal; 
 in support of his motion. He said, tiiat the reso- that it is required by the constitution to keep a 
 lution which be had offered, though resolved up- Journal; and being so required, could not destroy 
 on, as he had heretofore slated, without consults- j any part of it. This, said Mr. B , is slicking in 
 tion with any person, was not resolved upon with- the baric, and in the thinnest bark in which a shot, 
 out great deliberation in his own mimi. Trej even the smallest, was ever lodged. Various are 
 
 crimmatkig resolution, which it was his object to 
 expunge, was presented to the Senate, December 
 
 26th, 1833. The Senator from Kentucky who tory of what y ou do. For the Senate to keep a 
 introduc; d it (Mr. Clay) commenced a discussion Journal, is to cause to 
 
 of it on that day, which was continued through 
 the months of January and February, and to the 
 end, nearly, of the month of March. The vote was 
 taken upon the 28th of March; and about a fort 
 night thereafter he announced to the Senate, his 
 intention to commence a series of motions for ex 
 punging the resolution from the Journal. Here 
 then was nearly four months for consideration; for 
 the decision was expected; and he had very anx 
 iously considered, during that period, all the diffi 
 culties, and all the proprieties, of the st-.>p M hich 
 he meditated. Was the intended motion to clear 
 the Journal of the resolution, right in itself? The 
 convictions of his judgment told him that it was 
 Was expurgation the proper mode? Yes! he was 
 
 the meanings of th? word keep, used as a verb. 
 To keep a journal is to write down, daily, the his- 
 o. For the Senate to keep a 
 to be written down, everyday, 
 the account of its proceedings; and having done 
 that, the constitutional injunction is satisfied- The 
 constitution was satisfied by entering this criminat 
 ing- resolution on the Journal; it will be equally sa- 
 tified by entering the expunging resolution on the 
 S ame Journal. In each case the Senate keeps a 
 Journal of its proceeding s. 
 
 It is objected also that we have no right to de 
 stroy a part of the Journal; and that to expunge is 
 t9 destroy, and to prevent the expunged part from 
 beintr known in future. Not so the fact, said Mr. 
 B. The matter expunged is not destroyed. It is 
 incorporated in the expunging resolution; and lives 
 as long as that lives; the only effect of the expur 
 gation being to express, in the most emphatic 
 
 M34748 
 
manner, the opinion that such matter ought never 
 to \f.-ve } been put in th.e. Journal. 
 
 Mr-B.] said he tytfuBi jsujpport these positions by 
 Witliorfty,* the aiitliorft/oreifcJnejit examples; and 
 \v(". .iH .c. .te . -tye- .cnrea, out ^pf a .multitude that 
 n, J*e^f f^1, Jo; sbmvyth .t expunging- was 
 the proper c HIIVC, the parliamentary course, in 
 such M cast; as the one now before the Senate, and 
 that I)K- expunged matter was incorporated and 
 presf-ived in the expunging 1 resolution. 
 
 Mr. 15. then re.-d from a volume of British Par- 
 li inen .ary history, he celebrated case of the Mi- 
 dlesex election, in which the resolution to expel the 
 famous John "W i Ikes was expunged from the Jour 
 nal, but preserved m the expurgatory resolution, 
 so as lobe just as well read nowas.if it hid never 
 been blotted out fn>m the Journals of the British 
 House of Commons. The resolution ran in these 
 words: 4i That the resolution of the House of the 
 17th of February, 1769, that John Wilkes, Esq. 
 having been, in this session of parliament, expel 
 led this^House, was and is incapable of being elect 
 ed a member to serve in the present Parliament, 
 br expunged from the Journals of this House, as 
 being subversive of the rights of the whole body 
 of electors of this Kingdom." Such, said Mr. 
 B., were the terms of the expunging resolu ion in 
 the rase of the Middlesex election, as it was an 
 nually introduced from 1769 to 1782, when it was 
 finally passed, by a vote of near three to one, and 
 the clause ordered to be expunged, was blotted 
 out of the Journal, and obliterated by the clerk at 
 the table, in the presence of the whole House, 
 which remained silent, and all business suspended 
 until the obliteration was complete. Yet, the his 
 tory of the case is not lost. Though blotted out 
 of one part of the Journal, it is saved in another; 
 and here, at the distance of half a century, and 
 some thousand miles from London, the whole case 
 is read as fully as if no such operation had ever 
 been performed upon it. 
 
 Having given a precedent from British Parlia 
 mentary history, Mr. B. would give another from 
 American history; not indeed from the Congress 
 of the assembled States, but from one of the old 
 est and most lespectable States of the Union: he 
 spoke of Massachusetts, and of the resolution 
 adopted in the Senate of that State during the 
 late war, adverse to the celebration of our national 
 victories?, and which, some ten years afterwards, 
 was expunged from the journals by a solemn vote 
 of the Senate. He read the case as follows: 
 " ERASURE OF THE JOURNAL 
 
 "The resolution offered by the Hon. Mr. 
 Sprague, the 17th instant, in the words following: 
 
 " Whereas a certain resolve passed the Senate 
 of this Commonwealth on the 15th day of June, 
 A. D. 1813, relating to the capture of his Britan 
 nic Majesty s ship Peacock by the United States 
 ship Hornet, commanded by the late brave and 
 patriotic Capt. James Lawrence, in the words fol 
 lowing, viz. 
 
 * Resolved, As the sense of the Senate ol 
 Massachusetts, that in a war like the present, 
 waged without justifiable cause, and prosecutec 
 in a manner which indicates that conquest anc 
 ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a 
 moral and religious People to express any appro 
 
 nation of military or naval exploits winch are not 
 mmediately connected with the defence of our 
 seacoast and soil. 
 
 And whereas said resolution, adopted at a time 
 of extraordinary political excitement, is predicat 
 ed upon an erroiv- ous estimate of the nature and 
 character of the late war between the United 
 States nnd Great Britain; and wheieasit involves 
 and asserts principles, unsound in policy and dan 
 gerous and alarming in tendency wherefore, that 
 it may not hereafter be considered as expressing 
 the deliberate sense of the Senate and People of 
 this Commonwealth, at this time of uncommon po 
 litical tranquil ity, 
 
 " Revived, That the aforesaid resolve of the 
 fifteenth day of June, A. D. 1813, and the pream 
 ble thereof, be, and the same are hereby, expung 
 ed fmm the journals of the Senate. 
 
 "Yeas 22, nays 15." 
 
 Having produced these two precedents, Mr. B. 
 said he would produce no more, though he had 
 seen two instances of expunging matter from the 
 journals, in State Legislatures, during the present 
 winter, and in fact within a month past. He be 
 lieved he could show great numbers of such pre 
 cedents, and that in States whose constitutions 
 contained the same injunction with respect to 
 keeping a journal which was found in the consti 
 tution of the United States. Mr. B. then referred 
 ,o the terms of the resolution which he had sub 
 mitted, and showed that it conformed to the pre 
 cedents which he had produced from Massachu 
 setts and Great Britain, both in using the word ex 
 punge, and in setting forth the clause to be ex 
 punged in the body of the expurgatory resolution. 
 
 Mr. B. then said, the word which he had 
 
 used was parliamentary; the motion which he had 
 made was parliamentary. He had a right to use 
 the word, and to make them otion, and to argu- 
 freely in support of it; and he had been astonish 
 ed at the sensibility which had been shown, and 
 the small-sized objections which had been taken 
 to the course which he had adopted; objections 
 of a kind which had never been heard of before 
 on a similar motion. 
 
 Mr. B. said there was another objection to his 
 motion which he would notice, because it went to 
 the substance of his proceeding; it was the objec 
 tion brought forward some weeks ago at the pre 
 sentation of the Alabama instructions to her Sena 
 tors on the subject of this motion, and which took 
 it up as a question of dignity to the Senate! It 
 seemed to be considered as an attack upon the 
 dignity of the Senate! Not so the fact. The mo 
 tion is not intended to degrade the Senate? not 
 intended to impair its dignity; nor will such be 
 the effect; but the contrary. True dignity is best 
 consulted in correcting errors, and in listening 
 calmly to the voice which undertakes to show the 
 existence of errors which require correction. 
 True dignity requires this Senate to listen to this 
 motion with calmness and patience, as the British 
 House of Commons listened to the motions to ex 
 punge the famous Middlesex resolutions from 
 their journals, and as the Massachusetts Senate 
 listened to the motion to expunge from their jour 
 nals the resolution adopted in a season of great 
 excitement, and wkich a season of calmness made 
 
all feel ought never to have been put there. This 
 is what true dignity required from the Senate, and 
 he trusted it WHS what the Senate would he found 
 to exhibit. 
 
 A year ago, said Mr. 13. the Senate tried Pre 
 sident Jackson; now the Senate itself is on trial; 
 nominally before itself; but in reality before Ame 
 rica, Europe, and posterity. We shail give our 
 voices in our own case; we shall vote for or against 
 this motion, and the entry upon the record will 
 be according to the majority of voices. But 
 that is not the end, but the beginning of our trial 
 We shall be judged by others, by the public, by 
 the prc sent ag-e, and by all posterity! The pro 
 ceedings of this case, and of this day, will not be 
 limited to the present age; they will go down to 
 posterity, and to the latest ages. President Jack 
 son is not a character to be forgotten in history. 
 His name is not to be confined to the dry catalogue, 
 and official nomenclature, of mere American Pre 
 sidents. Like the great Romans who attained 
 the consulship, not fey the paltry aits of elec 
 tioneering, but through a series of illustrious deeds, 
 his name will live, not for the offices he filled, but 
 for the deeds which he performed. He is the 
 first President that has ever received the condem- i 
 
 nation of the Sen-.te for the violation of the law;) and he uses the remarkable expression which ac- 
 and the constitution, the first whose name is) knowledges the duty of Parliament to obey the 
 borne upon the journals of the American Senate! will of the People. " They had declared their sen- 
 for the violation of that constitution which he is 
 sworn to observe, and of those laws which he is 
 bound to see faithfully executed. Such a con- 
 
 in a more clear and distinct manner than on this 
 point of the first magnitude for all the electors of 
 the kingdom, and I trust will now be heard favora 
 bly." 
 
 He then read from Mr. Fox s speech. Mr. 
 Fox had heretofore opposed the expunging reso 
 lution, but now \ ielded to it in obedience to the 
 voice of the People. " He (Mr. Fox) had turned 
 the question often in his min;!, and he was still of 
 opinion that the resolution which gentlemen 
 wanted to expunge, was founded on proper 
 principles." * * * * " Though he opposed 
 the motion, he felt very little anxiety for the 
 event of the question; for when he found the voice 
 of the People was against the privilege, a-; he be 
 lieved was the case at present, he would not pre 
 
 " The 
 had declared their 
 
 serve the privilege." 
 People hut associated; they 
 sentiments to Parliament, and had taught -^Parlia 
 ment to listen to the voice of their constituents." 
 Having read these passages, Mr. B. said they 
 were the sentiments of an Knglish whig of the old 
 school. Mr- Fox was a whig of the old school. 
 He acknowledged ihe right of the People to in 
 struct the : r representatives. He yielded to the gene 
 ral voice himself, though not specially instructed; 
 
 timents to Parliament, and had taught Parliament 
 to listen to the voice of their constituents" This, 
 
 said Mr. B., was fifty years ago; it was spoken by a 
 
 demnation cannot escape the observation of histo- ! member of Parliament, who, besides being the 
 ry. It will be read, considered, judged! when first debater of his age, was at that time Secretary 
 
 the men of this day, and the passions of this 
 hour, shall have passed to eternal repose. 
 
 at War. H3 acknowledged the duty of Parlia 
 ment to obey the voice of the People. The son 
 
 Before he proceeded to the exposition of the of a peer of the realm, and only not a peer himself 
 case which he intended to make, he wished to because he was not the eldest son, he still ac- 
 avail himself of an argument which had been con-| knowledged the great democratic principle which 
 elusive elsewhere, and which he trusted could not I lies at the bottom of all representative govern- 
 be without effect in this Senate. It was the ar-|ment. After this, after such an example, will 
 gument of public opinion. In the case of the American Senators be unwilling to obey the Peo- 
 Middlesex election, it had been decisive with the | pie? Will they require the People to teach Con- 
 British House of Commons; in the Massachu-i gress the lesson which Mr. Fox s^ys the English 
 setts case, it had been decisive with the people had taught their Parliament fifty years ago? 
 Senate of that State. In both these cases many (The voice of the People of the United States had 
 gentlemen yielded their private opinions to public i been heard on this subject. The elections de- 
 sentiment; and public sentiment having been I dared it. The vote <f imny Legislatures de- 
 
 well pronounced in the case now before the Se 
 nate, he had a right to look for the same deferen 
 tial respect for it here which had been shown else 
 where. 
 
 Mr. B. then took up a volume of British Parlia 
 mentary History for the year 1782, the 22d vol 
 ume, and read various passages from pages 1407, 
 8, 10, 11, to show the stress which had been 
 laid on the argument of public opinion in favor of 
 expunging the Middlesex resolutions, and the de 
 ference which was paid to it by the House, and by 
 members who had, until then opposed tke mo 
 tion to expunge. He read first from Mr. Wilkes s 
 opening speech, on renewing 1 h<s annual motion 
 for the fourteenth time, as follows: 
 
 "If the People of England, sir, have at any 
 time explicitly and fully declared an opinion re- 
 
 claredit. From the confine.- fuie Kepublir. t ie 
 voice of the People came rolling in, as.vellmg 
 tide, rising as it flowed, and covering the Capitol 
 with its mountain waves. Cn that voice be disre 
 garded? Will members of a republican Congress 
 be less obedient to the voice cf the People than 
 were the representativs of a monarchical House 
 of Commons 
 
 Mr. B. then proceeded to the argument of his 
 motion. He moved to expunge the resolution >{ 
 March 2Sth, 1834, from thejourna s of the Senate, 
 because ft was illegal and unjust vague and in 
 definite, A crinvnal cha:-ge without specification 
 unwarranted by the constitution and laws sub 
 versive nf the rig hts of defence which belong to 
 an accused and impeachable officer of evil exam 
 ple and adopted at a time and under circurostan- 
 
 specting a momentous constitutional question, it; ces to involve the political rights and the pecunia- 
 has been in regard to the Middlesex election injry interests of the People of the United States in 
 1768." * * * ** Their roice was never heard peculiar da nerer an-i serious injury. 
 
These reasons for expunging the criminating 
 resolution from the journals, Mr. B. said, were not 
 phrases collected and parade d for effect, or strung 
 togc- h r for harmony of sound. They were each 
 ilely and indiv dually, substantive reasons; 
 every word an allegation of fact, or of law. With 
 out going ful y into the argument now, he would 
 make an exposition which would lay open his 
 meaning, and enable each allegation, whether of 
 law or of fact, to be: fully understood, and replied 
 to in the sense intended. 
 
 1. Illegul and unjust. These were the first 
 heads under which Mr. B. would develope his ob 
 jections, he would say, the outline of his objec- 
 tioi - to the resolution proposed to be expunged. 
 He held it to be illegal, because it contained a 
 crirr inal charge, on which the President might be 
 imp*, ached, and for which he might be tried by 
 the Senate. The resolution adopted by the Senate 
 is precisely the first step taken in the House of 
 Representatives to bring on an impeachment. It 
 was a resolution offered by a member in his place, 
 containing a criminal charge aguinst an impeacha 
 ble officer, debated for a hundred days, and then 
 voted upon by the Sc-nate, and the officer voted to 
 be guilty. This is the precise mode of bringing 
 on an impeachment in the House of Representa 
 tives; and to prove it, Mr. B. would read from a 
 work of approve authority on parliamentary prac 
 tice; it was from Jefferson s Manual. Mr. B. then 
 read from the Manual under the section entitled 
 Impeachment, and from that head of the section 
 ent tied Accusation. The writer was giving the 
 British parliamentary practice, to which our own 
 constitution is conformable. "The Commons, as 
 the grand inquest of the nation, becme suitors for 
 penal justice. The general course is to pass a 
 resolution containing a criminal charge against the 
 supposed delinquent, and then to direct some 
 member to impeach him by oral accusation at the 
 bar of the House of Lords, in the name of the 
 Commons. " 
 
 Repeating a clause of what he had read, Mr. B. 
 said, the general course is to pass a criminal charge 
 against the supposed delinquent. This is exactly 
 what the Senate did; and what did it do next? 
 Nothing. And why nothing? Because there was 
 nothing to be done by them, but to execute the 
 sentence they had passed; and that they could not 
 do. Penal justice was the sequence of the reso 
 lution? and a judgment of penalties could not be 
 attempted on such an irregular proceeding. The 
 only kind of penal justice which the Senate could 
 inflict wasthut of public opinion; it was to ostracise 
 the President, and to expose him to public odium, 
 as a violater of the laws and constitution of his 
 country. Having shewn the resolution to be ille 
 gal, Mr. B. would pronounce it to be unjust; for he 
 affirmed the resolution to be untrue; he maintain 
 ed that the President had violated no law, no part 
 of the constitution, in dismissing Mr. Duane from 
 the Treasury, appointing Mr. Taney, or causing 
 the deposites to be removed; fer these were ihe 
 specifications contained in the original resolution, 
 also in the second modification of ihe resolution 
 and intended in the third modification when strip 
 ped of specifications, and reduced to a vague and 
 general charge, it was in this shape of a general 
 
 charge that the resolution passed. No new speci 
 fications were even suggested in debate. The 
 alterations were made voluntarily, by the friends 
 of the resolution, at the Last moment of the debate, 
 and just when th vote was to be taken. And why 
 were the specifications then dropped? Because 
 no majority couid be found to agree in them? or 
 because it was thought prudent to drop the name 
 of the Bank of the United States. or for both 
 these reasons together ? Be that as it may, suid 
 Mr. B.the condemnation of the President, and the 
 support of the Bank, were connected in the reso 
 lution, and will be indi^solubly connected in the 
 public mind; and the President was unjustly con 
 demned in the same resolution that bef. iended and 
 sustained the cause of the Bank. He held the 
 condemnation to be untrue in point of fact, and 
 therefore unjust; for he maintained that there was 
 no breach of the laws and constitution in any thing 
 that President Jackson did in removing Mr. Duane, 
 or in appointing Mr. Taney, or in causing the de 
 posites to be removed. There was no violation ef 
 law, or constitution, in any part of these proceed 
 ing?; on the contrary the whole country, and the 
 Government itself, was redeemed from the domin 
 ion of a great and daring moneyed corporation, by 
 the wisdom and energy of these very proceed 
 ings. 
 
 2. Vague and indefinite; a criminal charge with 
 out specification. Such was the resolution, Mr. 
 B. said, when it passed the Senate; but such it was 
 not when first introduced, nor even when first 
 altered; in its first and second forms it contained 
 specifications, and these specifications identified 
 the condemnation of the President with the de 
 fence of the Bank; in its third form these specifi 
 cations were omitted, and no others were substi 
 tuted; the Bank and the resolution stood discon 
 nected on the record, but as much connected in 
 fact as ever. The resolution was reduced to its 
 vague and indefinite form on purpose, and in that 
 circumstance acquired a new character of injustice 
 to President Jackson. His accusers should have 
 specified the lw, and the clause in the constitu 
 tion which was violated; they should have speci 
 fied the acts wh;ch constituted the violation. 
 This was due to the accused that he might 
 know on what points to defend himself; it 
 was due to the public, that they might know on 
 what points to hold the accusers to their responsi 
 bility, and to make them accountable for an unjust 
 accusation. To sustain this position Mr. B. had 
 recourse to history and example, and produced the 
 case of Mr. Giles s accusation of Gen. Hamilton, 
 then Secretary of the Treasury, in the y*ar 1793. 
 Mr. Giles, he said, proceeded in a manly, respon 
 sible manner. He specified the law, and the al 
 leged violations of the law; so that the friends of 
 Gen. Hamilton could see what to defend, and so 
 as to make himself accountable for the accusa 
 tion. He specified the law, which he believed to 
 be violated, by its date, and its title; and he speci 
 fied the two instances in which he held that Jaw to 
 have been infringed. Mr. 15. then read Mr. Giles s 
 resolution as follows: 
 
 "Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury 
 has violated the law passed the 4th oP August, 
 1790, making appropriation of certain moneys au- 
 
thorized to be borrowed by the same law, in the or to conciliate the vote s of all who were willing to 
 following- particulars, to wit: j condemn the President, but could not tell 
 
 " 1. By applying a certain portion of the prin- j what, it was not for him to say; but one thing- he 
 cipal borrowed to the payment of interest fulling would venture to say. that the majority who agreed 
 due upon that principal, which was not authorized j in passing a general resolution, containing a crim- 
 
 by that, or any other law. 
 
 "2. By drawing part of the same moneys into 
 the United Slates, without the instructions of the 
 Pr< s dentof the United States." 
 
 Mr, B. s\id he had a double object in quoting 
 th s resolution of Mr. Giles which was intended to 
 lay the foundation for an impeachment against 
 General Hamilton; it was to show, first, the spec 
 
 inal charge against President Jackson, for violat 
 ing the laws and the constitution, cannot now agree 
 in naming the law, or the clause in the constitution 
 violated, or in specifying any act constituting such 
 violation. And here Mr. B. paused, and offered 
 to give way to the gentlemen of the opposition, if 
 they would now undertake to specify any act 
 which President Jackson had done in violation of 
 
 ality with which these criminating resolutions j law or constitution. 
 
 should be drawn; next, to show the absence of any 3. Unwarranted by the constitution and laws. 
 
 allegation of corrupt or wicked intention. The Mr. B. said this head explained itself. It needed 
 
 meie violation of law was charged as the offence, 
 as it was in three of the articles of the impeachment 
 against Judgo Ciiase; and thus the absence of an 
 allegation of corrupt intention in the resolution 
 
 no developementto be understood by the Senate 
 or the country. The President was condemned, 
 without the form of a trial; and therefore his conn 
 demoation was unwarranted by the constitution 
 
 adopted Against President Jackson, was no argru- 1 and laws. 
 
 ment against its impeachment character, especially j 4. Subversive of the rights of defence which 
 
 belong to an accused, and impeuchable officer.- 
 
 as exhibited in its first and second form with the 
 criminal averment, " dangerous to the liberties of 
 
 the pe< pie." 
 
 For the purpose of exposing the studied v;igue 
 ness of the resolution as passed, detecting its con 
 nexion with the Bank of the United States, de 
 
 This head, also, Mr. B. said explained itself. An 
 
 accused person had a right to be heard before he 
 was condemned; an impeachable officer could not 
 be condemned unheard by the Senate without 
 subverting all the rights of defence which belong 
 
 monstrating its criminal character in twice retain- to him, and disqualifying the Senate to act as im- 
 ing the criminal averment, " dangerous to the liber- \ partial judges in the event of his being regularly 
 ties of the PeopL;" and showing the progressive impeached for the same offence. In this case, the 
 changes it had to undergo before it could concili- House of Representatives, if they confided in the 
 ate a majority of the votes, Mr. B. would exhibit Senate s condemnation, would send up an impeach- 
 all three of the resolutions, and read them side ment; that they hud not done so, was proof that 
 by side of each other, as they appeared before the they hud no confidence i -\ the correctness of our 
 Senate in the first, second, and third forms which decision. 
 
 they were made to wear. They appeared first in 5. Of evil example. Nothing said Mr. B. could 
 thtir embryo, or primordial form; then they as- be more unjust and illegal in itself, and therefore 
 sumed their aurelia, or chrysalis state; in the third more evil in example, than to try people without a 
 stage, they reached the ultimate perfection of their hearing, and condemn them without defence. In 
 
 this case such a trial and such a condemnation was 
 aggravated by the refusal of the Senate, after their 
 sentence was pronounced, to receive the defence 
 of the President, and let it be printed for the in 
 spection of posterity! So that, if this criminating 
 resolution is not expunged, the singular spectacle 
 will go down to posterity, of a co;id mnation, and 
 A refusal to permit an answer from the condemned 
 person, standing recorded on the pages of the 
 same journal! Mr. B. said, the Senate must look 
 forward to the time, far ahead perhaps, but a 
 time which may come, when this body may 
 be filled with disappoint d competitors, or 
 personal enemies of the President, or of aspi 
 rants to the very office which h. holds, and who 
 m^y not scruple to undertake to cripple him by 
 Senatorial condemnations; to atta iV. him by con- 
 viction-; to ostracise him by vote; and lest this 
 should happen, and the present condemnation of 
 President .Jackson should become the -precedent 
 for such an odious proceeding, the evil example 
 should be arrested, should be removed, by ex 
 punging the present senior! :e from the Journals 
 of the Senate. And here M . B. would avail 
 hin self of a voice which had often been he^rd in 
 the two Houses of Con^res, and always with re- 
 It was the voice of a wise 
 a goad man, a patriot; one 
 
 imperfect nature. 
 
 First Form. 
 
 Second Form. TJiird Form. 
 
 26tft Dec., 1833 
 
 March 2S*A, 1 834. 
 
 March 28th, 1834- 
 
 " Resolved, That by 
 
 " Resolved, That 
 
 " Resolved, That 
 
 dismissing the late 
 
 in taking upon him 
 
 the President, in the 
 
 Secretary of the 
 
 self the responsibili 
 
 ate Executive i>ro- 
 
 Trcnsury, because he 
 
 ty of removing thejceedinps in relation 
 
 would not, contrary 
 
 deposite of the pub 
 
 to the public reven 
 
 to his sense of his 
 
 lic money from the 
 
 ue, has assumed up 
 
 own duty, remove 
 
 Bank of the United 
 
 on himself authori 
 
 the money of the U. 
 
 States, the ^resident 
 
 ty and power not 
 
 States, in deposit*- 
 
 >f tho United States 
 
 conferred by the 
 
 with the . a:ik of the 
 
 has assumed the ex 
 
 constitution nml 
 
 United States and iis 
 
 ercise of a power 
 
 laws, but in dero 
 
 brancli -s, in confor 
 
 nver the Treasury 
 
 gation of both." 
 
 mity with the Prcsi 
 
 of the United State. 1 - 
 
 
 dent s opinion, and 
 
 not granted to him 
 
 
 by appointing hissuc- 
 
 ly the constitution 
 
 
 cefisor to niiike *ueh 
 
 and laws, and livn 
 
 
 removal, which lias 
 
 geroos to the liber 
 
 
 been done, the Pre 
 
 ties of he people. 
 
 
 sident hqs assumed | | 
 
 the exercise of a> 
 
 
 power over the Trea 
 
 
 
 sury of the United 
 
 
 
 States, not granted 
 
 
 
 to him by the consti 
 
 
 
 tution and laws, and 
 
 
 
 dangeroi 1 -* to the lib 
 
 
 
 erties of the people." 
 
 
 
 Having exhibited the original resolution, with 
 
 its variations. Mr. B. would leave it to others to 
 
 explain the reasons of such extraordinary meta- 
 
 morphosts. Whether to get rid of the Bank as- spect and venerat : on 
 sociation, or to get ri:l of the impeachment clause, man, :m limes , man, 
 
8 
 
 who knew no cause but the cause of his country; 
 and who, a quarter of a century ago, foresaw, and 
 described the scenes of this day, and foretold the 
 consequences which must have happened to any 
 other President under the circumstances in which 
 President Jackson has been placed. He spoke of 
 NATHANIEL MAC ON, of North Carolina; and 
 of the sentiments which he expressed in the year 
 1810, when called upon to give a vote in approba 
 tion of Mr. Madison s conduct in dismissing Mr. 
 Jackson, the then British minister to the United 
 States. He opposed the resolution of approba 
 tion, because the House had nothing to do with 
 the President in their legislative character except 
 the passing of laws, calling for information, or im 
 peaching; and looking into the evil consequences 
 of undertaking to judge the President s conduct, 
 he foretold the exact predicament in which the 
 Senate is now involved with respect to President 
 Jackson. Mr. B. then read extracts from the 
 speech of Mr. Macon on the occasion referred to: 
 
 " I am opposed to the resolution, not for the 
 reasons which have been offered against it, nor for 
 any which can be drawn from the documents be 
 fore us, but because I am opposed to addressing 
 the Presidi nt of the United States upon any sub 
 ject whatever. We have nothing to do with him 
 in our I g illative character, except the passing 
 of laws, calling on him for information, or to im 
 peach. On the day of the Presidential election, 
 we, in common with our fellow citizens, are to 
 pass on his canduct; and resolutions of this sort 
 will have no weight on that day. It is on this 
 ground solely that I am opposed to adopting any 
 resolution whatever in relation to the Executive 
 conduct. If the National Legislature can pass 
 resolutions to approve the conduct of the Presi 
 dent, may they not, also, pass resolutions to cen 
 sure; and what would be the situation of the coun 
 try, if we were now discussing a motion to request 
 the President to recall Mr. Jackson, and again to 
 endeavor to negotiate with him." 
 
 " To me it appears, on a fair examination of his 
 letters, that he was properly dismissed. Hut to the 
 resolution: it will not be denied that either House 
 might pass an approbatory resolution, without ask 
 ing the concurrence of the other. Then, what 
 would be the situation of the Gove nment or the 
 country, if one br.mch of the Legislature was of a 
 different party from the Executive, and the branch 
 agreeing uithihe President should pass an ap 
 probatory resolution; might we not, from our 
 knowledge of the intolerant spirit of par 
 ty, * xpect the other branch to pass one to cen 
 sure. But suppo-ing both branches opposed to 
 the Executive, and they pass joint resolutions 
 against him, what, thi-n, becomes of the Executive) 1 
 Strong as it is, with all its patronage it must fill. 
 No Executive could maintain itself in this situa 
 tion. This state of things would agitate every 
 part of the nation, and shake the Union itself; 
 and thi.* Government is s organized that it is not 
 impossible that all this may happen. This House 
 is elected for two years, the Senate for six, and the 
 President for four. If it ever should happen, I 
 fear you would not only have no President, but 
 no Federal Government. This would be a very 
 different case from that which took place when 
 
 Congress repealed a law, because it was opposed 
 by part of the nation. That opposition was used 
 as an argument to shake the firmness of the Na 
 tional Legislature, and it succeeded. I have, 
 since I had a seat in the House, heard a great deal 
 about foreign influence; I have never believed 
 much in it; but if events like these I have mention 
 ed should ever take place, you may look for for 
 eign influence." 
 
 6. At a time, and under circumstances, to in 
 volve the political rights and pecuniary interests 
 of the people of the United States in serious injury 
 and peculiar danger. This head of his argument, 
 Mr. B. said, would require a development and de 
 tail which he had not deemed it necessary at this 
 time, considering what had been said by him at 
 the last session, and what would now be said by 
 others, to give to the other reasons which he had 
 so briefly touehed. But at this point he apnroach- 
 ed new ground; h* entered a new field; he saw 
 an extended horizon of argument and fact expand 
 before him! and it became necessary for him to 
 expand with his subject. The condemnation of 
 the Presi lent is indissolubly connected with the 
 cause of the Bank! The first form of the resolu 
 tion exhibited the connexion; the second form 
 did also; every speech did the same; for every 
 speech in condemnation of the President was in 
 justification of the Bank; every speech in justifi 
 cation of the President was in condemnation of the 
 Bank; and thus the two objects were identical 
 and reciprocal. The attack of one was a defence 
 of the other; the defence of one was the attack 
 j of the other. And thus it continued for the long 
 protracted period of nearly one hundred days, 
 from December 26th, 1833, to March 28th, 1834; 
 when, for reasons not explained to the Senate, 
 upon a private consultation among the friends of 
 the resolution, the mover of it came forward to 
 the Secretary s table, and voluntarily made the 
 alterations which cut the connexion between the 
 Bank and the resolution! but it stood upon the 
 j record, by striking out every thing relative to the 
 i dismissal of Mr. Duane, the appointment of Mr- 
 Taney, and the removal of the deposites. But the 
 alteration was made in the record only. The con- 
 | nexion still subsisted in fact; now lives in memo- 
 ry, and shall live in history. Ye*, sir, said Mr. B. 
 1 addressing himself to the President of the Senate; 
 ; yes, sir, the condemnation of the President was in 
 dissolubly connected with the cause of the Bank; 
 I with the removal of the deposites, the renewal of 
 ! the charter, the restoration of the deposites, the 
 I vindication of Mr. Duane, the rejection of Mr. 
 Taney, the fate of elections, the overthrow of the 
 Jackson administration, th^ fall of prices, the dis 
 tress meetings, the distress memorials, the distress 
 commit ees, the distress speeches; and all the long 
 list of hapless measures which .Astonished, terri 
 fied, afflicted, and deeply injured the country du 
 ring the long and agonized protraction of the fa- 
 mous PANIC SESSION. All these things are 
 connected, said Mr. B., and it became his duty to 
 place a part of the proof which established the 
 connexion before the Senate and the people. 
 
 Mr. B. then took up the appendix to the report 
 made by the Senate s Committee of Finance on 
 the Bank, commonly called Mr. Tyler s Report, 
 
and read extracts from instructions sent to two- 
 and -twenty branches of the Bank, contemporane 
 ously with t ie progress of the debate on the crim 
 inating resolutions; the object and effect of which, 
 ai d their connexion with the debate in the Senate, 
 would be quickly seen. Premising- that the Bank 
 had despatched orders to the same branch.es in 
 the month of August, and had curtailed $4,066,- 
 000, and again in the month of ( ictober to curt a 1 
 $5,825,000, and to increase the rates of their ex 
 change, and had expressly stated in a circular on 
 the 17th of that month, that this reduction would 
 place the branches in a position of entire security, 
 Mr. B. invoked attention to the shower of orders, 
 and their dates, which he was about to read. He 
 read passages from page 77 to 82, inclusive. They 
 were all extracts of letters from the President of 
 the Bank in person to the Presidents of the branch 
 es; /or Mr. B. said it must be remembered, as one 
 of the peculiar features of the Bank attack upon 
 the country last winter, that the whole business of 
 conducting this curtailment, and raising exchang 
 es, and doing whatever it pleased with the com 
 merce, currency, and business of the country, was 
 withdrawn from the Board of Pirectors, and con 
 fided to one of those convenient committees of 
 which the President is ex-officio member, and 
 creator; and which, in this case, was expressly 
 absolved from reporting to the Board of Directors! 
 The letters then ate all from Nicholas Diddle, 
 President, and not from Samuel Jaudon, Cashier, 
 and are addressed direct to the Presidents of the 
 branch banks. Mr. B. read: 
 
 January 22d, 1834 The present situation of 
 the bank, and the new measures of hostility which 
 are understood to be in contemplation, make it 
 expedient to place the institution beyond the 
 reach of all danger." It then directs that by the 
 first cf March the discount line shall be reduced 
 to a sum named, being the branches proportion of 
 a curtailment of $3,220,000, to be effected in 
 about two months, and raises exchange on New 
 Orleans to not less than two per cent, discount, 
 with a limitation to purchase except on New Or 
 leans and the North Atlantic cities. This letter is 
 directed to the Cashiers of the branches at Cin 
 cinnati, Lexington, .Louisville, St. Louis, Nash 
 ville, and Natchez. 
 
 January 30th, 1834. " With a view to meet 
 the coming crisis in the banking 1 concerns of the 
 country, and especially to provide against new 
 measures of hostility understood to be in contem 
 plation by the Executive officers at Washington, 
 a general reduction has been ordered at the several 
 offices, and I have now to ask your particular at 
 tention to accomplish it " * * * 
 ** On the defeat of these nv asures to destroy the 
 Bank, depends, in ovir deliberate ju Igment, not 
 merely the pecuniary interests, but the whole free 
 institutions of our country; and our determination 
 is, even by a temporary sacrifice of profit, to place 
 the Bank entirely beyond the reach of those who 
 meditate its destruction. " The letter then directs 
 the looal discounts to be brought down to one mil 
 lion five hundred thousand dollars, and the rate 
 of exchange on western offices to be raised to not 
 less than two and a half per cent. This letter is 
 
 directed to the President at Charleston, South 
 Carolina, and to no one else. 
 
 February 1, 1834. "The State of the Bank 
 and the country, and the new measures of hos 
 tility understood to be in contemplation by the 
 Executive officers, make it expedient to place the 
 institution above the reach of all contingencies; 
 to this object every part of the establishment must 
 co-operate; and I am accordingly direct f-d to in 
 struct you to put the business of your office on the 
 following footing." This letter is directed to 
 three offices, Buffalo, Utica, and Burlington, arid 
 directs them to keep their local discounts to a 
 small sum, which is named, and places restrictions 
 on the purchas^ of exchange. 
 
 January 27, 1834. "The situation of the 
 Bank and the country, and the new measures of 
 hostility which are understood to be in contempla 
 tion, make it proper to place the Bank entirely 
 beyond the reach of any contingency." This 
 letter directed to the President of the office at 
 Baltimore, and pn scribes a reduction of dis 
 counts by the 1st of March to $1,400,000, and to 
 raise the rates of exchange from those fixed on 
 the first of October preceed mg 1 , to not less than 
 two and u half per cent, on the west; not less than 
 two per cent, on New Orleans, and not less than 
 one per cent, south of Washington city. The 
 same letter, on the same day, was sent to three 
 other offices, namely, Richmond, Norfolk, awl 
 Fayetteville, only varying in the amounts cf the 
 reduction, and in the time to make it, the 10th of 
 April being fixed for the comp etioa of the ,e- 
 duction. 
 
 January 24, 1834." The state of the Hank 
 and of the country, and the new measures of hos 
 tility against it which are understood to be in con 
 templation, make it proper to put the Bank into a 
 position entirely out of the reach of all contingen 
 cies; for this purpose I am directe 1 to request that 
 you will pla^e the business of your office on the 
 following footing." To reduce the discounts by 
 the first of April to $3,500,000, and to abstain 
 from purchasing bii:s of exchange, payable at 
 places on the Mississippi, aud its branches, includ 
 ing all the western offices. " The sta*e of things 
 here is very gloomy, and unless Congress takes 
 some decide-d step to prevent the progress of the 
 troubles, they may soon outgrow our control." 
 * * * * it is a moment of great interest, 
 and exposed to sudden changes, in public affairs, 
 which may induce the Bank to conform its policy 
 to them. Of these dangers, should any occur, 
 you will have early advice " This letter directed 
 to the President of the branch at New Orleans, 
 only. 
 
 January 24, 1834.* The state of the Bank 
 and the country, and the new measures of hostili 
 ty to the institution, which it is understood are in 
 contemplation, make it expedient to place the 
 Bank beyond the reach of all contingencies; I am 
 therefore, instructed," &c. To reduce discounts 
 to a sum named, by the 1st of March, to raise ex 
 change to not less than two and a half per cent, on 
 western offices, not less than two per cent, on 
 New Orleans, and not less than one per cent, 
 south of Washing-ion city; the letter addressed to 
 
10 
 
 four blanches; Portland, Providence, Portsmouth, 
 and Hertford. 
 
 January 21, 1834. "The present situation of 
 the Bank, :>nd the measures of hostility to the in 
 stitution which are understood to be in contempla 
 tion, render it expedient to provide for its entire 
 safety against all contingencies," &c. Then di 
 rects a reduction of discounts to $4,000,000 by 
 the 1st of Apnl, and an increase of the ratts of 
 exchange to two and a half per cent, on the west, 
 to two per cent, on New Orleans and Mobile, and 
 to one per cent, south of Washing-ton; the letter 
 directed to the President of the branch at New 
 Tork. 
 
 January 27, 1834. "In a recent examination 
 of the situation of the Bank and the offices, it 
 was determined that in the present state of the 
 country, and in consideration of the new mea 
 sures of hos i! ty contemplated by the Executive 
 officers of the United States at Washington, it 
 was proper to place the institution beyond the 
 reach of contingencies," &c. Then directs the 
 discounts to be confined to their present moderate 
 amount, and exchanges to be raised to not less 
 thtm t-vo and a half per cent, on the west, not less 
 than two p^r cent, on New Orleans, and not less 
 than one per cemt. south of Washington city. 
 This letttr directed to the President at Boston, 
 only. 
 
 k When Mr. B. had finished reading- these extracts, 
 ke turned <o the report made by the Senator from 
 Va., who sat on his right, (Mr. Tyler,) where all 
 that was said about these new measures of hostility, 
 and the propriety of the Bank s conduct in this 
 third curtailment, and in this increase upon rates 
 of exchange, were compressed into twenty lines, 
 and the wisdom and necessity of them were left to 
 be pronounced upon by the judgment of the Sen- 
 *<e. Mr. B. would read those twenty lines of that 
 report: 
 
 " The whole amount of reduction ordered by 
 the above proceedings (curtailment ordered on 
 8ih and 17th of October) was $5,825,906. The 
 same table, No. 4, exhibits the fact, that on the 
 23d of January a further reduction was ordered to 
 the amount of $3,320,000. This was communicat 
 ed to the offices in letters from the President, 
 stating, that the present situation of the Bank, 
 and the new measures of hostility which are un 
 derstood to be in contemplation, make it expe 
 dient to place the institution beyond the reach of 
 all danger: for this purpose, I am directed to in 
 struct j our office to conduct its business on the 
 following footing/ (appendix. No. 9, copies of 
 letters.) The offices of Cincinnati, Louisville, 
 Lexington, St. Louis, Nashville, and Natchez, 
 were fuither directed to confine themselves to 90 
 days bills on Baltimore, and the cities north of it, 
 of which they were allowed to purchase any 
 amouiat their means would justify; and to bills 
 payable on New Orleans, which they were to take 
 only in payment of pre-existing- debts to the Bank 
 and its offices; while the office at New Orl ans 
 was directed to abstain from drawing on the Wes 
 tern offices, and to make its purchases mainly on 
 t! e north Atlantic cities. The committee has 
 til 1 . is given a full, and somewhat elaborate detail of 
 the various ir.easurv s resorted to by the Bank, from 
 
 the 13th of August, 1833; of their wisdom and ne 
 cessity the Senate will best be able to pronounce a 
 correct judgment." 
 
 This, Mr. B. said, was the meager and stinted 
 manner in which the report treated a transaction 
 which he would show to be the most cold-blooded, 
 calculating, and diabolical, which the annals of 
 any country on this side of Asia could exhibit. 
 
 [Mr. TYLER here said there were two pages on 
 this subject to be found at another part of the re 
 port, and opened the report at the place for Mr. 
 B.] 
 
 Mr. B. said the two pages contained but 
 few allusions to this subject, and nothing to 
 add to, or vary what was contained in the twen 
 ty lines he had read. He looked upon it as a 
 great omission in the report; the mure so as the 
 committee had been expressly commanded to re 
 port upon the curtailments and the conduct of the 
 Bank in the business of internal exchange. He 
 had hoped to have had searching inquiries, and 
 detailed statements of facts on these \ ital points. 
 He looked to the Senator from Va., (Mr.Tyler,) for 
 these inquiries and statements. He wished him to 
 show,by the manner in which he would drag to light, 
 and < xposet vie w,the vast crimes of the Bank, that 
 the Old Domii.ion was still the mother of the 
 Gracchi that the old lady was not yet forty-five 
 that she coald breed sons! Sons to emulate the 
 fame of the Scipios. But he was disappointed. 
 The report was dumb, silent, speechless upon 
 the operations of the Hank during its t rrible c-im- 
 paign of panic and pressure upon the American 
 people. And now he would pay one instalment 
 of the speech which had been promised some time 
 ago on the subject of this report; for there was a 
 part of that speech which was strictly applicable 
 and appropriate to the head he was now discus 
 sing. 
 
 Mr. B. then addressed himself to the Senator 
 from Virginia who sat on his his right (Mr. Tyler) 
 and requested him to supply an omission in his re 
 port, and to inform what were those new measures 
 of hostility alluded to in the two-and-twenty let 
 ters of instruction of the Bank, and repeated in 
 the report, and which were made the pretext for 
 this third curtailment, and these new and extraor 
 dinary restriction 1 ; and impositions upon the pur 
 chase of bills of exchange? 
 
 Mr. TYLER answer, d that it was the expected 
 prohibition upon the receivability of the branch 
 B mk drafts in payment of the federal revenue. 
 
 Mr. B. resumed: The senator is right. These 
 drafts are mentioned in one of the circular letters, 
 and but one of them, as the hew measure under 
 stood to be in contemplation, and which under 
 standing had been made the prctt -\t for scourging 1 
 the country. He, Mr. B- was incapable of :i the 
 atrical artifice, a stage trick, mugiMve debate. 
 He had no question but that the Senator could an 
 swer his question, and he knew that he had an 
 swered it truly; but he wanted his testimony, his 
 evidence, against the Bank; he wanted proof to 
 tie the Bank down t th ; s answer; to this pretext; 
 to this thin disguise for her conduct in scourging 
 the country. The answer is now given; the proof 
 
 adduced; and the apprehended pro s ibis ion oi 
 the receivability of the braiich drafts, stand.-* both 
 
11 
 
 as the pretext, and the sole pretext for the pres 
 sure c mmenced in January, the doubling- the 
 rates of exchange, breaking- up exchanges be 
 tween the five western brunch banks, and concen 
 trating the collection of bills of exchange upon 
 four reat commercial cities. 
 
 Mr. 13. then took s<x positions which he enume 
 
 rated, an I undertook to demonstrate 
 They were: 
 
 to be true. 
 
 1. That it was unlrue in point of fact, that there 
 measures in contemplation, or ac- 
 
 vrere any new 
 
 upon the country was kept up; the two and twen 
 ty orders were continued in force. What can be 
 thought of an institution which, being avmed by 
 law with power over the moneyed r.yvcm of the 
 whole country, should proceed to exercise that 
 power to distress that country for money, upon an 
 understanding that something \\ as in contempla 
 tion, and never inquire if its understanding- was 
 correct, nor cease its operations, when each suc 
 cessive day, for one hundred and fifty days, proved 
 to it that no such thing was in contemplation? At 
 last, on the 27th of June, when the pressure is to 
 be relaxed, it is done upon another ground; not 
 upon the ground that the new measures had never 
 taken effect, but because Congress was about to 
 rise wMiout having done any thing ;or the Bank. 
 Here is a clear confession that the allegaton of 
 new measures was a mere pretext; and that the 
 motive was to operate upon Congress, :mJ force a 
 restoration of the depobites, and a renewal of the 
 charter. 
 
 Mr. B. said, he knew all about these drafts The 
 President always condemned their legahty,andwas 
 for stopping the receipt of them. Mr. Taney, 
 when Attorney General, condemned them in 1831. 
 
 5. That this curtailment, and the^e exchange Mr. B. had applit d to Mr. McLans in 1832 to stop 
 regulations in January, were political and re volu- j them; but he came to no decision. He applied to 
 tionary, and connect themselves w.th the resolu- ! Mr. Duane, by letter, as soon as he canoe into the 
 tion in the Senate for the condemnation of Presi- Treasury, but got no answer. He applied to Mr. 
 
 tion, to destroy the Bank. 
 
 2 That it was untiue in point of fact, hat the 
 President harbored hostile and revengeful de 
 signs against the existence of the Bank. 
 
 3. That it was untiue in point < ffact, that there 
 was any r.ecessi y for this third cuitaJment, which 
 was oidcred the last Of January. 
 
 4. lhat h re was no excuse, justification, or 
 apology for the conduct of the Bank in i\ lation to 
 domestic exchange, in doubling i s rates, breaking- 
 it up tetwien the five western branches, turning 
 the collect on of bill* upon the principal commer 
 cial cities, and forbidding the branch at New Or 
 leans to purchase bills on any part of the West. 
 
 dent Jackson. 
 
 ] Taney as soon as he arrived at Washington in the 
 
 6. That the distress of the country was occa- i fall of 1833, and Mr. Taney decided that he 
 sioned by the Bank of the United States, and the ! would not stop them until the moneyed concern* 
 Senate of the Unit d States, and not by the re- 1 of the country had recovered their tranquillity and 
 moval of the deposites. I prosperity, lest the Bank should make it the pre- 
 
 Having stated his positions, Mr. B. proceeded text of new attempts to distress the country; and 
 to demonstrate them {thus, the very th : ng which Mr. Taney refused to 
 
 1. As 10 the new measures to destroy the Bank. i do, lest it should be made a pretext for oppres- 
 Mr. B. said there was no such measures. The one i sior.s, was falsely converted into a pretext to do 
 indicated, that of stopping- the receipt of the j what he was determined they should have no pre- 
 branch bank drafts in payments to the United text for doing. 
 
 States, exi-ted no where but in the two-and twen- But Mr. B. took higher ground *til ; it was this; 
 ty letters of instruction of the President of the I that even if the receipt of the drafts had been 
 Bank. There is not even an allegation that the ! stopped in January or February, there would have 
 measure existed; the language is "in contempla- i been no necessity on that account for curtailing 
 tion" "und p rstod to be in contemplation" j debts and embarrassing exchanges. This gound 
 and upon this flimsy pretext of an understanding he sustianed by showing, 1. Tliat the Bank had 
 of something in contemplation, and which some- at that time two millions of dollars in Europe, ly- 
 thing never took place, a set of rutl.lt ss orders; ing idle, as a fund to draw bills of exchange upon, 
 are sent out to every quarter of the Ui ion to ! and the mere sale of bil s on this sum would have 
 make a pressure for money, and to embarrass the met every demand which the rejection of the 
 domestic exchanges of the Union. Three days I drafts could have thrown upon it. 2. That it sent 
 would have brought an answer from Washington ! the money it raised by this curtailment to Europe, 
 to Philadelphia from the Treasuiy to the Bank to the amount of three and a half millions, and 
 and let it be known that there was no intention thereby showed that it was not collected to meet 
 to stop the receipt of these drafts at that time any demand at home. 3. That the Bank had at that 
 But it would seem that the Bank diJ not recognise > t : me, (January, 1834,) the sum of $4,230,509 of 
 the legitimacy of Mr. Taney s appointment! tnd ! public money in hand, and therefore had United 
 therefore would not condescend to correspond ! States money enough in possession to balance any 
 with him as Secretary of the Tre tsury! But time I injury from rejection of drafts. 4. That the Bank 
 gave the answer, even if the Bank would not in- j had notes enough on hand to supply the place of 
 quire at the Treasury. Day after day, week after j all the drafts, even if they were all driven in. 5. 
 week, month after month, passed off, and these That it had stopped the receipt of these branch 
 redoubtable new measures never made their ap- , drafts itself at the branches, except each for its 
 pearanco. Why not then stop the ctrta Iment, ; own, in November 1833, and was compelled to 
 and restore the exchanges to their former footing? l resume their receipt by the ewergetic and just con- 
 February, March, Aprl, May, June five months ! duct of Mr. Taney, in giving transfer drafts to be 
 one hundred and fifty days, all passidaway; the used against the branches winch would not honor 
 new measures never came; and yet the pressure the no es and drafts of the other branches. Here 
 
Mr. B. turned upon Mr. Tyler s report, and se- ) ence to the Bank, in which it never felt any in- 
 verely arraigned it for alleging that the Bank terest, which the Treasury adopted for its own 
 always honored its paper at every point, and fur- convenience, which was , lways under the exclu- 
 nishinga ^,>p y of negative testimony to prove sive control of the Treasury, about which the 
 that assertion when there was a large mass of posi- Bank had never expressed a wish, of which it 
 
 tive testimony, the disinterested evidence of nu 
 merous respectable persons, to prove the contra 
 ry, and which the committee had not noticed. 
 
 Finally Mr. B. hadreconrse to Mr. Biddle s own 
 testimony to annihilate his (Mr. Biddle s) affected 
 alarm for the destruction of the Bank, and the in 
 jury to the country from the repulse of these 
 famous branch drafts from revenue payments. It 
 was in the letter of Mr. Biddle to Mr. Woodbury 
 in the fall of 1834, when the receipt of these drafts 
 was actually stopped, and in the order which was 
 issued to the branches to continue to issue them as 
 usual. Mr. B. read a passage from this letter to 
 shew that the receipt of these drafts was always a 
 mere treasury arrangement, in which the Bank felt 
 
 not sent them a circulai 
 which it WHS not intend* 
 
 would have taken no notice if the Secretary had 
 ; and the expediency of 
 d t > question in the re 
 motest degree! Having pointed out these fatal 
 contradictions, Mr. B. said it was a case in which 
 the emphatic ejaculation might well be repeated: 
 Oh! that mine enemy would write a book! 
 
 To put the seal of the Bank s contempt on the 
 order prohibiting the receipt of these drafts, to 
 show its disregard of law, and its ability to sustain 
 its drafts upon its own resources, and without the 
 advantage of Government receivability, Mr. B. 
 read the order which the President of the Bank 
 addressed to all the branches on the receipt of the 
 circular which gave him information of the rejec 
 tion of these drafts, it was in these words: " This 
 
 will make no alteration, whatever, in your practice, 
 
 with regard to issuing or pay ing these draft?, which 
 
 \you will continue as heretofore." What a pity, 
 
 ! said Mr. B. that the President of the Bank could 
 
 no int rest; that the refusal to receive them was an 
 object at all times of perfect indifference to the 
 Bunk, and would not have been even noticed by 
 it, if Mr. Woodbury had not sent him a copy of his 
 circular. The following is the passage read: 
 
 " As the receipt of these drafts by the treasury not have thought of issuing such an ord r as this 
 was an arragement exclusively its own, in which j in January, instead of sending forth the mandate 
 the Bank felt no interest; the refusal to receive for curtailing debts, embarrassing exchange, levy- 
 them hereafter is an object of equal indifference; j ing three millions and a half, alarming the coun- 
 nor would it have been in any manner noticed, btit j try with the cry of danger, and exhibiting Presi- 
 that as you have transmitted to me a copy of the j dent Jackson as a vindictive tyrant, intent upon 
 circular, the silence of the Bank might be miscon- j the ruin of the Bank! 
 slrued into an acquiescence in the contents of that 1. The hostility of the President 
 paper. Without meaning, therefore, in the re 
 motest degree to question the expediency of the 
 measure, it is deemed proper to suggest," &c. 
 * * * t( i>j le phraseology (of the circular 
 rejecting the drafts) appears to convey the im- 
 preasion that the Bank had sought to obtain the 
 receipt of these draft* by certain assurances to the 
 treasury. It is difficult to imagine any thing more 
 groundless. The Bank never consulted the treas 
 ury on the subject, nordiditvermak assurances 
 of any kind to the treasury. The Bank on its own 
 
 responsibility issued these drafts. The Secretary 
 of the Treasury subsequently asked for information 
 
 to the bank. 
 This assertion, said Mr. B., so incontinently re 
 iterated by the Presi lent of the bank, is taken 
 up and repeated by our Finance committee, to 
 whose report he was now paying an instalment of 
 those respects which he had promised them. This 
 assertion, so far as the bank and the committee 
 are concerned in making it, is an assertion with 
 out evidence, and so far as the facts are concern 
 ed, it is an assertion against evidence. If there is 
 any evidence of the banker the committee to sup 
 port this assertion in the forty pages of the re 
 
 port, or the three hundred pages of the appendix, 
 the four members of the Finance committee can 
 
 about them. It was given, not merely without an produce it, when they come to reply. That there 
 assurance, but without the expression of a wish of j WAS evidence to contradict it, he was now ready 
 any kind. On the contrary, the letter giving the j to show. This evidence consisted in four or five 
 explanation concluded with these words: " Whe- ! public, and prominent facts, which he would now 
 ther, under these circumstances, it is expedient to ! mention, and in other circumstances, which he 
 receive them, is a question for the exclusive con- j would show hereafter. The first was, the fact 
 sideration of the department." which he mentioned when this report was first 
 
 Mr. B. invoked the attention of the Senate up- read on the 18th of December last, namely, that 
 on the fatal contradictions which this letter of No- j President Juckson had nominated Mr. Biddle at 
 vember, and these instructions of January, 1834, j the head of the Government directors, and there- 
 exhibit. In January, the mere understanding of by indicated him for the Presidency of the bank, 
 a design in contemplation to exclude these drafts for three successive years after this hostility was 
 from revenue payments, is a danger of such supposed to have commenced. The second was, 
 alarming magnitude, an invasion of the rights of j that the President had never ordered a scire facias 
 
 the Bank in such a flagrant manner, a proof of 
 such vindictive determination to prostrate, sacri 
 fice, snd ruin the institution, that the entire conti 
 nent must be laid under contribution to raise mo 
 ney to enable the institution to stand the shock! 
 In November of the same year, when the order for 
 Hie rejection actually comes, then the same mea- 
 
 to issue against the b-^nk to vacate its charter, 
 which he has the right, under the 23d section of 
 the charter, to do, whenever he believed the char 
 ter to be violated. The third, that, during many 
 years, he has never required his Secretaries of the 
 Treasury tostoj: the governmental receipt of the 
 branch bank drafts, although his own mind upon 
 
 sure is declared to be one of the utmost indiffer- ! their illegality had been made up for several years 
 
13 
 
 past. The fourth, that after all the clamor,-- all the 
 invocations upon Heaven and Earth against the ty 
 ranny of removing 1 the deposites .hose deposites 
 have never happened to be quite entirely remov 
 ed! An average of near four mil ions of dollars 
 of puN ic mon-y has remained in the hands of the 
 bank fur each month, from the 1st of October, 
 1833, to the 1st of Jan u TV, 1835, inclus vely! 
 embracing" the entire period from the time the or 
 der was to tnke effect agninst depositing 1 in the 
 Bank of the United Spates down to the commence 
 ment of ti e present year! So fur are the depo 
 sites from being- quite entirely removed, as the 
 public are led to believe, that, at the distance of 
 fifteen mon hs from the time the order for the re 
 moval began to take effect, there remained in the 
 hands of the bank the large sum of three millions 
 eight hundred and seventy-eight thousand, nine 
 hundred and fifty-one dollars, and ninety-seven 
 cents, (3,878,951 97,) according to her own 
 showing in her monthly statements. That Presi 
 dent .fackson is, :>.nd always has been, opposed to 
 the ex steuce of the bank, is a fact as true as it is 
 honorable to him; that he is hostile to it, in the vin 
 dictive and revengeful sense of the phrase, is an 
 assertion, Mr. B. would take the liberty to repeat, 
 without evidence, so far as he could see into the 
 proofs of the committee, and against evidence, 
 to the full extent of all the testimony within 
 his view. Far from indulging in revengeful 
 resentment against the Bank, he has been pa 
 tient, indulgent, and forbearing towards it to a 
 degree hardly compatible with his duty to his 
 country, and with his constitutional supervision 
 over the faithful execution of the laws; to a degree 
 which has drawn upon him, as a deduction from 
 his own conduct, an argument in favor of the le 
 gality of this very branch bank currency, on the 
 part of this very committee, as may be seen in their 
 report. Again, the very circumstance on which 
 this charge of hostility rests in the two-and-twenty 
 letters of Mr. Biddle, proves it to be untrue; for 
 the stoppage of the drafts understood to be in 
 contemplation, was not in contemplation, and did 
 not take place until the pecuniary concerns of the 
 country were tranquil and prosperous; and when it 
 did thus take place, the President of the Bank de 
 clared it to have been always the exclusive right of 
 the Government to doit, in which the Bank had no 
 interest, and for whicl) it cared nothing. No! said 
 Mr. B. the President has opposed the recharter 
 of the Bank; he has not attacked its present char 
 ter. Tie has opposed its future, not its present ex 
 istence. And those who characterize this oppo 
 sition to a future charter as attacking the Bank, 
 and destroying the Bank, must admit that they ad 
 vocate the hereditary light of the Bank to a new 
 charter after the old one is out; and that they do- 
 ny to a public man the right of opposing that he 
 reditary claim. 
 
 3. That there wis no necessity for this third curtail 
 ment ordered in January. Mr.B. said, to have a full 
 conception of the truth of this position, it was pro 
 per to recollect that the Bank made its first cur 
 tailment in August, when the appointnent of an 
 agent to arrange with the deposite Banks, an 
 nounced the fact that the Bank of the United 
 States was soon to cease to be the depository of 
 
 public moneys. The reduction under tint first 
 curtailment was $4,066 000- The secon I was 
 in October, and under that order for curtailment 
 the reduction was $5,825,000- The whole re 
 duction then, consequent upon the expected, and 
 actual removal of deposi trs, was $9391>000 
 At the snme time the whole amount of deposites 
 on the first dav of October, the day for the remov 
 al, or rather for the cessation to deposite in the 
 United States Bank took effect, was $9,8S8>- 
 435; ^d on the first day of February, 1834, when 
 the third curtailment was ordered, there were 
 sull $3;066>561 of these deposites on hand, and 
 have remained on hand to near that amount ever 
 since; so that the Bank in the two first curtail 
 ments, accomplished between August and Janua 
 ry, had actu-l!y curtailed to the whole amount, 
 and to the exact amount, upon precise calculation, 
 of the amount of deposites on hand on the 1st of 
 October; and still had on the 1st of January a frac 
 tion over three millions of the deposites in its pos 
 session. This simple statement of sums and dates 
 shows that there was no necessity for ordering a 
 further reduction of $3,320,000 in January, as the 
 Bank had already curtailed to the whole amount 
 of the deposites, and $22,500 over. Nor did the 
 Bank put the third curtailment upon that ground, 
 but upon the new measures in contemplation; thus 
 leaving her advocates every where still to attri 
 bute the pressure created by the third curtailment 
 to the old cause of the removal of the deposites. 
 This simple statement of facts is sufficient to show 
 that this third curtailment was unnecessary. 
 What confirms that view, is that the Bank remitted 
 to Europe, as fast as it was collected, the whole 
 amount of the curtailment, and $105,000 over, 
 there to lie idle until she could raise the foreign 
 exchange to 8 per cent, above par, which she had 
 sunk to 5 per cent, below par, and thus nuke two 
 sets of profits out of one operation in distressing 
 ami pressing the country. 
 
 4. No excuse for doubling the rates of ex 
 change, breaking up the exchange business in ttxe 
 West, forbidd ng the branch at New Orleans to pur 
 chase a single bill on the West, and concentrating 
 the collection of exchange on the four great com 
 mercial cities. For this, Mr. B. said, no apol 
 ogy, no excuse, no just justification, was offered 
 by the Bank. The act stood unjustified, nd un 
 justifiable. The B mk itself has shrunk from the 
 attempt to justify it: our committee, in that report 
 of which the Bank proclaims itself to be so proud, 
 gives no opinion in its brief notice of a few lines 
 upon this transaction, but leaves it to the Senate 
 to pronounce upon its wisdom and necessity! 
 The committee, Mr. B. said, had failed in their 
 duty to their country by the manner in which 
 they hnl veiled this affair of the exchanges in a 
 few lines, and then blinked the question of its 
 enormity, by referring 1 it to the judgment of the 
 Senate. He made the same remark upon the co- 
 temporaneous measure of the third curtrulment; 
 and called on the author f the report (Mr. Ty 
 ler) to defend his report, and to defend the C"n- 
 ductof the Bank, now, if he could; and request 
 ed him to receive all this part of his speech as a 
 further instalment paid of what was due to that re 
 port on the Bank. 
 
 
14 
 
 5. T!:at tae curta lment, Mid exchange regula 
 tions of January, were political and revolutionary, 
 and connect themselves with the contemporaneous 
 proceedings (-f the Senate for the condemnation of 
 
 phrase, revenue, which might signify the Force 
 Bill in South Carolina, and the Bank question in 
 Philadelphia! The vagueness of the expression 
 left every gentleman to fight upon his own hook, 
 
 the President. That this curtailment, and *hese land to hang- his vote upon any mental reservation 
 regulations, were wanton and wicked, was a pro- which could be found in his own mind! and Mr. 
 
 B. wou d go before the intelligence of any rational 
 
 pro- 
 
 po ition, Mr. B. said, which resulted as a logical 
 conclusion from what had been already shown, 
 namely, that they were causeless and unnecessary, 
 and done upon pretexts which h <ve been clt mon- 
 strated to be false. That they were pol tical and 
 revolutionary, and connected with the proceed 
 ings in the Senate for the condemnation of the 
 President, he would now prore. In the exhibi 
 tion of this proof, the first thing to be looked to is 
 the chronology of the events, the time at whic 1 
 
 man with the declaration that the connexion be 
 tween the condemnation of the President and the 
 cause of the Bank, was doubly proved; first, by 
 the words of the resolution, and next by the omis 
 sion of those words. The next point of connex 
 ion, Mr. B. said, was detected in the times, varied 
 to suit each Stiite, at which the pressure under the 
 curtailment was to reach its maximum; and the 
 mannei in which the restrictions upon the side and 
 
 the Bank made this third curtailment, and sent purchase of bills of exchange was made to fall ex- 
 forth thes.- exchange regulations, and the time at c usively and heav ly upon the principal commcr- 
 which the Senate curried on the proceeding against 
 the President. Viewed under this aspect, the 
 two movements are not only connected, but iden 
 tical and inseparable. The time for the condem 
 nation of the President covers the period from the 
 26th of December, 1833, to the 28th of March, 
 
 1834; 
 same 
 
 the Bank movement 
 period; the orders 
 
 is included in the 
 for the pressure 
 
 were issued from the 21st of January to the 
 1st of February, and were to accomplish their 
 effect in the month of March, and by the first of 
 April, except in one place, where for a reason 
 which will be shown at the proper time, the ac 
 complishment of the effect was protracted till the 
 10. h day of April. These, Mr. B. said, were the 
 ditesof issuing the orders, and accomplishing their 
 effect; the date of the adoption of the resolution 
 in the Bank for this movement, is not given in the 
 report, but must have been, in the nature of thing.,, 
 anterior to the issue of the orders; it must have 
 been some days before the issue of the orders; and 
 was in ail probability a few days after the com 
 mencement of the movement in the Senate against 
 the Pns dent. The next point of connexion, Mr. 
 B. said, uas in the subject-matler; and here it was 
 necessary to recur to ti e o. iginul form, and to the 
 second form, of the resolution for the condemna 
 tion of the President. In the first, or primordiil 
 form, the resolution was expressly connected with 
 the cause of the Bank. It was, for dismissing Mr. 
 Duane because he would not remove the depo- 
 site, and appointing Mr Tancy because he would 
 remove them. In the second form of the resolu 
 tion that form which naturalists would cail its 
 aurelia, or chrysalis state, the phraseology of the 
 connexion was varied, but still the connexion was 
 retained and expressed. The names of Mr. Du 
 ane, and Mr. Taney, were dropped; and the re 
 moval of the depos tes upon his own responsibility, 
 was the alleged offence of the President. In its 
 third, and ultimate transformation, all allusion to 
 the Bank was dropped, and the vague term, reve 
 nue, was substituted; but it was a substitution of 
 phrase only, without any alteration of sense or 
 meaning. The resolution -s the same under all its 
 phases. It is still the Bank, and Mr. Taney, and 
 Mr. Dunne, and the removal of the deposites, 
 which re the things to be understood, though no 
 longer prudent to express. AH these substantial 
 objects are veiled, and substituted by the empty 
 
 cial cit es, at the moment when most deeply en 
 gaged in the purch use and shipment of produce. 
 Thus, in Ntw York, where the great charier elec 
 tions were to take place during the first week in 
 April, the curtailment was to reach its maximum 
 pressure on the first day of that month! In Vir 
 ginia, where the elections are continued through 
 out the whole month of April, the pressure was 
 not to reach its climax unt 1 the tenth day of that 
 month! In Connecticut, where the elections oc 
 curred about the first of April, the pressure was 
 to have its last turn of the screw in the mouth of 
 March! And in these three instances, the only 
 ones in winch elections were depending, the po- 
 1 tical bearing of the pressure was clear and unde 
 niable. The sympathy in the Senate, in the re 
 sults of these political calculations, was displayed 
 in the exultation which broke out OB receiving 
 the news of the elections in Virginia, New York, 
 and Connecticut an exultation which broke 
 out into the most extravag.nt rejoicings over 
 the supposed downfall of the administration. The 
 careful calculation to mike the pressure and the 
 exchange regulations, fa -l upon the commercial 
 cities at the moment to injure commerce most, was 
 also visible in the times fixed for each Thus in 
 all the western cities, Cincinnati, Louisville, Lex 
 ington, Nashville, Pittsburgh St. Lotus, the pres 
 sure was to reach its maximum by the first day of 
 March; the shipments of western produce to New 
 Orleans being 1 mostly over by that time; but in 
 New Orleans the pressure was to continue till the 
 first of April, because the shipping season is pro 
 tracted there till that month, and thus the produce 
 which left the upper States under the depression 
 of the pressure, was to meet the same pressure up 
 on its arrival in New Orleans; and thus cnable*th 
 friends of the Bank to read the r ruined prices of 
 western produce on the floor of this Senate. In 
 Baltimore, the first of March was fixed, which 
 would cover the active business season there. So 
 much, said Mr. B. for the pressure by curtailment; 
 now for the pressure by b.lls of exchange, and he 
 would take the case of New Orleans first. All the 
 branches in the west, and every where else in the 
 Union, were authorized to purchase bills of ex 
 change at short dates, not exceeding ninety days 
 on that emporium of the west; so as to increase the 
 demand for money there; at the same time the 
 branch in Nw Orleans was forbid to purchases 
 
15 
 
 single bill in any part of the valley of the Missis 
 sippi. This prohibition was for two purposes, 
 first, lo break up exchange, and next to make 
 money scarce in New Orleans, as in default tf bills 
 of exchange, silver would be shipped, and the 
 shipping- of silver would make a pressure upon 
 alt the local banks. To help out this operation, 
 Mr. B. said t must be well and continually remem 
 bered that the Bank of the United Stat s itsel 
 abducted aboiit one mi lion and a quarter of hard 
 dollars from New Orleans during the period of 
 the pressure there; thus provingthat all her affect 
 
 Thus the Bank stood upon one pretext, and its 
 friends stood upon another! and for this mortify 
 ing contradiction, in which all its friends have be 
 come exposed to see their mournful speeches ex 
 ploded by the Bank itsel c , a just indignation ought 
 now to be felt by :dl the friends of the Bank, who 
 were laying the distress to the removal of the de- 
 posites, and daily crying out that nothing could 
 relieve the country but the restoration cf the de- 
 po.sites, or the recharter of the Bank! while the 
 Bank itself was writing- to its branches, that it was 
 the new measures understood to be in emit em plat ion 
 
 ed necessity for curtailment was a false and wicked! that was occasioning all the mischief. Mr. B. 
 pretext for the cover of her own political and revo- { would close this head with a remark which ought 
 lutionary views. j to excite reflections which should never die away; 
 
 The case of the western branches was next ad-j which should be remembered as long 1 : s national 
 verted to by Mr. B. Among these, he said, the busi- ! banks existed, or asked for existence. It was this: 
 ness of exchange was broken pp in into. The j That here was a proved case of a National bank 
 five western branches were forbid to purchase ex- 1 availing- itself of its organization, andofrs power, 
 change at all! and this tyrannical order was not to send secret orders, upon a false pretext, to 
 even veiled with the pi etext of an excuse! Upon i every part of the Union, to create distress and 
 the north Atlantic cities, Mr. B. said, unlimited j panic, for the purpose of accomplishing an object 
 authority to all the branch- s was given to purchase i of its own! arid then publicly and ca umniously 
 
 bills, all at Sllfll t datfS lirrlff ninotxr /1 itre o nA oil rViotor>ii 
 
 bills, all at short dates, under ninety days, and all 
 intended to become due during the shipping season, 
 and to increase the demand for money while the 
 curtai ment was going on, and the screw turning 
 from day to day to lessen the capacity of getting 
 money, and make it more scarce as the demand 
 for it became urgent. Thus were the great com 
 mercial cities, New Orleans, New York, Baltimore, 
 and Philadelphia, subject to a double process of 
 oppression; and that ait the precise season of pur 
 chasing and shipping crops, so as to make their 
 dis resg recoil upon the planters and farmers! and all 
 this upon the pretext of new measures understood 
 to be m contemplation. Time again becomes 
 mat. rial, said Mr. B. The Bank pressure was a<-- 
 
 charging all this mischief on the act of the Presi 
 dent for the removal of the deposited. This re 
 collection should warn the country against ever 
 permitting another national bank to re-peat a crime 
 of such frightful immorality, and such enormous 
 injury to the busines-; and property of the People. 
 Mr. B. expressed his profound regret that t ( ie re 
 port of the Bank committee WHS silent upon 
 dreadful enormities, while 
 trifles in favor of the Bank. 
 
 the mischief done to private property the fall in 
 the price of st-iples, of stocks, and of nil real and 
 personal estate at the ruin of many merchants, 
 and the injury of many citizens which took p ace 
 during this hideous season of panic and pressure. 
 
 so elaborate upon 
 He was indignant, at 
 
 ranged in January, to reach its climax in March,! He w^s indignant at the Bank for creat iig- it, and 
 and the first of April; the debate in the Senate, for I still more fur its criminal audacity in charging its 
 the condemnation of President Jackson, which own conduct upon the President; and he was mor- 
 
 commenced in the last days of December, was 
 protracted over the whole period of the Bank 
 pressure, and reached its consummation at the same 
 time, namely the 28th day of March! The two 
 movements covered the same period of time, reach 
 ed their conclusions .together, and co-operated in 
 the effect to be produced; and during- the 
 three months of this double movement the 
 
 da ly with the 
 vengeance of 
 
 Senate chamber resounded 
 cry, that the tyrannv an- 
 the Pres dent, and his violation of laws and con 
 stitution, hid created the whole distress, and 
 struck the nation from a stnte o r Arcadian felici 
 tyfrom a condition of unparalleled prosperity 
 to the lowest depth of misery and ruin. And here 
 Mr. B. obte-te l and besought the Senate to con- 
 
 titled, profoundly moitified, that all this should 
 have escaped the attention of the Finance Com 
 mittee, and enabled them to make a report of 
 which ihe Bank, in its ofrici 1 organ, declares itself 
 to be justly proud; which it now has undergoing 
 the usual process of diffusion through the publica 
 tion of supplemental gazettes, which it openly 
 avers would have ensured the recharter if it had 
 come out in time, and to which it now looks for 
 such recharter as soon as President Jackson re 
 tires, and the country can be thrown into confusion 
 by the distractions of a Presidential election. 
 
 Mr. B. now took up another head of evidence 
 to prove the fact that the curtailment and ex 
 change regulations of January were political and 
 
 revolutionary, and connected with the proeeed- 
 
 suler the indifference with which the Bank treat- ings of the Senate for the condemnation of the 
 ed its friends in the Senate, and the sorrowful con- 1 President and here he would proceed upon evi- 
 tradiction in which they were left to be caught. | denre drawn from the Bank i self. Mr. B. then 
 In the Senate, and all over the country, the friends I rend extracts from Mr. Biddle s letter of instruc- 
 of the Bank were allowed to go on with fhe old tions (Jan. 30th, 1834) to Joseph Johnson, Esq. 
 tune, and run upon the wrong scent, of removal of! President of the branch Bank at Charleston, S. C. 
 the deposites, creating all the distress- while in I They were as follows: "With a view to meet the 
 the two-and-twenty circular letters despatched to! coming crisis in the banking concerns of the 
 create this distress, it was not the old measure i country, and especially to provide against new 
 alone, but the new measures contemplated, which measures of hostility understood to he in conte re 
 constituted the pretest fortlrs very same distress plation by the Executive officers at Washingto.., a 
 
16 
 
 genera! reduction has been ordered at the several 
 offices, and 1 have now to ask your particular at 
 tention to accomplish it." * * * * " It is 
 as disagree able to us as it can be to yourselves to 
 impose any restrictions upon the business of the 
 office. But you are perfectly aware of the effort 
 which has been making- for some time to prostrate 
 the Bai.k, to which this acw measure to which I 
 have alluded will soon be ad-1. d, unless the pro 
 jectors become alarmed at it. On the defeat of 
 these attempts to destroy the Bank, depends in 
 our deliberate judgment, not merely the pecu 
 niary interests, but the whole free institutions 
 of our country; and our determination is, by even 
 a temporary saoifice of profit, to place the Bank 
 entirely beyond the reach of those who meditate 
 its destruction." 
 
 Mr. B. would invoke the deepest attention to 
 this letter. The passages w^ich he had read 
 were not in the circulars addressed at the same 
 time, to the other brandies. It was confined 
 to this letter, with something s miUir in one more 
 which he would presently read. The coming cri 
 sis in the banking conctrns of the country is here 
 shadowed forth, and secretly foretold, three 
 months before it happened; and with good rea 
 son, for the prophet of the evil was to assist in 
 fulfilling his prophecy. With this secret pre- 
 d ction made in January, is to be connected the 
 public predictions contemporaneously m*de on 
 this ^floor, and continued till April, when the ex 
 plosion of some Banks in this District was pro 
 claimed as the commencement of the general ru 
 in which was to involve all local Banks, and espe 
 cially the whole safety-fund list of Banks, in one 
 universal catastrophe. The Senate would re 
 member all this, and spare him repetitions which 
 must now be heard withpnin, though uttered with 
 satisfaction a few months ago. The whole free 
 institutions of our country, was the next phrase in 
 the letter to which Mr. B. called attention. He 
 said that in this phrase the political designs of the 
 Bank stood iv-vealed, and he averred that this 
 language was identical with that used upon this 
 floor. Here then is the secret order of the Bank, 
 avowing that the whole free institutions of the 
 country are taken into its holy keeping; and 
 that it was determined to submit to a tempora 
 ry sacrifice of profit in sustaining the Bank, 
 which itself sustains the whole free institutions 
 of the country ! What insolence! What audaci 
 ty! But, said Mr. B. what is here meant by 
 free institutions was the elections! and the true 
 meaning of Mr. Biddle s letter is, that the Bank 
 meant to submit to t( mporary sacrifices of money 
 to carry the elections, and put down the Jackson 
 Administration. No other meaning can be put 
 upon the words; and if there could there is fur 
 ther proof in reserve to nail the infamous and 
 wicked design upon the Bank, another passage 
 in this letter, Mr. B. would point out, and then 
 proceed to a new piece of evidence. It was 
 the passage which said this new measure will 
 soon be added, unless the projectors become alar tri 
 ed at it. Now, said Mr. B. lake this as youpL-ase; 
 either that the projectors did, or did not, be 
 come alarmed at their new measure; the fact is 
 cte-tr that no new measure was put in force, and 
 
 that the bank in proceeding to act upon that as 
 sumption was inventing and fabricating a pretext 
 to justify the scourge which it was meditating 
 against th.2 country. Dates are here material, 
 said Mi 1 . B. The first let ers, founded on these 
 new measures, were dated the 21st of January; 
 and spoke of them as b ting understood to be in 
 contemplation, 5 his letter to Mr. Johnson, which 
 speaks hypothetically, is dated the SOdi of Janua 
 ry, being eight days later; in which tirna the 
 Bank had doubtless heard that its understanding 
 about what was in contemplation, was all false; 
 and to cover its retreat from having sent a false 
 hood to two-and-twenty branches, it gives notice 
 that the new measures which were the alleged 
 pretext of panic and pressure upon the country, 
 were not to take place, because the projectors 
 had got alarmed. The beautiful idea of the 
 projectors, that is to say, General Jackson, for 
 he is the person intended, becoming alarmed at 
 interdict ng the reception of illegal drafts at the 
 Treasury is conjured up as a salvo for the ho 
 nor of the Bank, in making two-and-twenty in 
 stances of false assertion. But the panic and 
 pressure orders are not countermanded. They 
 are to go on, although the proje tors do become 
 alarmed, and although the new measure be 
 dropped. 
 
 Mr. B. had an extract from a second letter to 
 read upon this subject. It was to the President 
 of the New Orleans branch, Mr. W. W. Montgo 
 mery, and dated Bank of the Unite 1 States, the 
 24th of January. He read the extwct: "The 
 state of things here is very gloomy, and unless 
 Congress takes some decided step to prevent die 
 progress of the troubles, they may soon outgrow 
 our control. Thus circumstanced, our fisrt duty 
 is to the institution, to preserve it from all dan 
 ger; and we are therefore anxious, for a short time 
 at least, to keep our business within manageable 
 limits, and to make some sacrifice of property to 
 entire security. It is a moment of great interest, 
 and exposed to sudden changes in public affairs, 
 which may induce the Bank to conform its policy 
 to them; of these dangers, should any occur, you 
 will have early advice." When he had read this 
 extra-t, Mr. B. proceeded to comment upon it; 
 ;dmost every word of it being pregnant with poli 
 tical and revoluntionarv meaning of the plainest 
 import. .The whole extract, he said, was the lan 
 guage of a politician, not of a banker, and looked 
 to political events to which the Bank intended to 
 conform its policy. In this way he commented 
 successively upon the gloomy state of things at the 
 Bank, for the letter is dated in the Bank, at d the 
 f roubles which were to outgrow their control un 
 less Congress took some decided step. These 
 troubles, Mr. B. Slid, could not be the dangers 
 of the Bank; for the Bank had taken entire care 
 of itself in the two-and-twenty orders which it sent 
 out to curtail loans and breuk up exchanges 
 Every one of these orders announced the power 
 of the Bank, and the determination of the Bank, to 
 take care of itself. Troubles outgrow our con 
 trol! What insolence! When the Bank itself, 
 and its confederates, were the creators nd fo- 
 mentors of a l these troubles, the progress of which 
 it affected to deplore. The next words, moment 
 
17 
 
 of great merest exposed to sudden changes, in j themselves, nor the institution intrusted to them, 
 public affairs induce the Bank to conform its j to be the instrument of private wrong and public 
 policy to them Mr. 13. said were too flagrant, and | outrage; nnr will they omit any fff-.>rt It rescue the 
 
 too barefaced, for comment. They were equiva 
 lent to an open declaration that a revolution was 
 momently expected, in whic:i Jackson s adminis 
 tration would be overthrown, and the friends of 
 the bank brought into power; and as soon as that 
 happened, the bank would inform its brandies of it; 
 and would then conform its policy to this revolu 
 
 tion, and relieve the country 
 which it was inflicting- upon it. 
 
 from the d stress 
 Sir, said Mr. B ., 
 
 Hddressing the Vice President, thirty ye-irs ago 
 the prophetic vision of Mr. Jefferson foresaw this 
 crisis; thirty years ago, he said that this Bunk WHS 
 an enemy to our form of government; that by i s 
 ramification and power, and by seizing on a cri i- 
 cal moment in our affairs, it would upset t .e go 
 vernment! and this is what it would have done last 
 
 institutions of the country from being trodl n un 
 der foot by a faction of interlopers. To these prof 
 ligate adventurers, whether their power is display 
 ed in the executive, or legislative depaivment, the 
 directors of the B*nk, w 11, we are satis-fi d, never 
 yield the thousandth part of an inch of ih<?ir own 
 personal rights, or their own offic al dut es; and 
 will continue this resistance UNTIL the COUN 
 TRY, reused to a proper sen*e of its dangers and its 
 wrongs, s l .a 1 DRIVE hese USURPERS out of the 
 HIGH PLACES they DISHONOR." This letter, 
 said Mr. B. discloses in terms which admit of no ex 
 planation or denial, the design of the Bank in cre 
 ating the pressure which was got up and continu 
 ed during the panic session. Jt was to rouse the 
 people, by dint of suffering, agiinst the President 
 
 winter, had it not been for one man! one man! one j and the House of Representatives, and to overturn 
 single man! with whom God had vouchsafed to fi- them both at the ensuing elect ons. To do this 
 vor our America in that hour of her greatest trial, now stands revealed as its avowed object. The 
 That one man stood a sole obstacle to the dread Senate and the Bmk were to sUnd together a- 
 career of the Bank; stood for six months as the | gainst the President and the Ho =se; and each to 
 
 act is part for the same co.nmon object; the Bank 
 to scourge the people for money, and charge its 
 own scourging upon the President; the Senate to 
 condemn him for a vio at on of the Uws and con 
 stitution, and to brand him as the Caesar, Cromwell, 
 Bonaparte; the tyrant, despot, usurper, whose 
 head would be cut off in any kingdom of Kurope 
 for such acts as he practised here. Mr. B. said, 
 the contemplation of the conduct of the Hank, 
 during the panic session, was revolting and incre 
 dible. It combined every thing to revolt and 
 
 rampart which defen led the country the citadel 
 upon which Bank artillery incessantly thundered! 
 and what was the conduct of the Senate ad thi- 
 
 it was trying and condemning that man; kil 
 ling him off with a Senatorial condemnation; re 
 moving the obstacle which stood betw< en the 
 B:mk and its prey; and in so doing, establishing 
 the indissoluble connexion between the movement 
 of the Bank in distressing the country , and the 
 movement of the Senate in condemning the Pre 
 sident. 
 
 Mr. B. said, that certainly no more proof was | shock the moral sense. Oppression, fclsehodd, 
 
 necessary on this head to show that the designs of 
 the Bank were political and revolutionary, inten 
 ded to put down President Jackson s administra 
 tion, and to connect itself with the Senate; but he 
 had more proof, that of a publ ; cation under the 
 
 lumny, revolution; the ruin of individuals, the fab 
 rication of false pretenses, the machinatons far 
 overturning the Government, the imputation of its 
 o\ n crimes upon the head of the President, the en 
 riching its favorites with the spoils of the countn , 
 
 editorial head of the National Gazette, and which insolence to the House of Representativi s, and its 
 publication he assumed to say was written by the I affected guardianship of the liberties of t ie pet 
 
 President of the Bunk. It was a long article of 
 four columns; but he would only read a para 
 graph. He read: "The great contest now wag 
 ing in this country, is between its free institutions, 
 and the violence of a vulgar despo ism. The Go 
 vernment is turned into a baneful faction, and the 
 spirit of liberty contends against it throughout the 
 country. On the one hand, is this miserable ca 
 bal, with all the PATRONAGE of the Executive; 
 on the other hand the yet unbroken mind and 
 heart of the country, with the SENATE and the 
 BANK; (in reading these words, in which the 
 Bank associated itself with the Senate, Mr. B. re 
 peated the famous expression of Cardinal Wolsey 
 in associating himself with the King, Ego et rex 
 meus,-) the House of Representatives, hitherto 
 the intuitive champion of freedom, shapen by the 
 intrigues of the kitchen, hesitates for a time, but 
 cannot fail before long to break its own fetters first, 
 and then those of the country. In that quarrel 
 we predict, they who administer the Bank will 
 shrink from no proper share which the country 
 may assign to them. Personally they must be as 
 indifferent as any of their fellow citizens to the 
 recharter of the Bank. But they will not suffe r 
 
 pie, and the free institutions of the coun ry; such 
 were the prominent features of its conduct. The 
 parallel of its enormity was not to be found on 
 this side of Asia; an example of such remorseless 
 atrocity was only to be seen in the conduct of the 
 Paul Benfields and the Debi Sings who ravaged 
 Ind a und r the name of the Marquis of Hasting*. 
 Even what had been casually and imperfectly 
 brought to light, disclosed a system of calculated 
 enormity which required the genius of Burke to 
 paint. Wh-it was behind would require labors of 
 a committee, constituted upon parliamentary prm- 
 ciples, not to plaster, but to probe the wounds 
 and ulcers of the Bank; and such a committee he 
 should hope to see, not now, but hereafter, not in 
 the vacation,but in the session of Congress. For he- 
 had no idea of these peripatetic and recess com 
 mittees, of which the panic session had been so 
 prolific. He wanted a committee, unq icstion; 
 ble in the legality of its own appointment, duly 
 qualified in a parliamentary sense for discovering 
 the misconduct they are set to investigate; and 
 sitting under the wing of the authority which can 
 punish the insolent, compel the refractory, and 
 enforce the obedience which is due to its mandates 
 
18 
 
 6. The distress of the country occas oned by the j compelled it to reduce its discounts and loans with 
 
 Hank of the United States, and the Senate of the 
 United States. This, Mr. B. said, might be an 
 unpleasant topic to discuss in the Senate; but this 
 Senate, for fou? months of the last session, and 
 during the whole debate on the resolution to con 
 demn the President, had resounded with the cry 
 that the President had created all the distress; and 
 the huge and motley mvss, throughout the U nion, 
 which marched under the oriflamme of the Bank, 
 had every where repeated and reiterated the same 
 cry. If there was any thing unpleasant, then, in 
 the discussion of this topic, in this place, the blame 
 must be laid on those who by using thut argument 
 in support of their resolution against the President, 
 devolves upon the defenders of the President the 
 necessity of refuting it. Mr. B. would have re 
 course to facts to establish his position. The first 
 fact he would recur to was the history of a reduc 
 tion of deposites, made once before in this same 
 Bank, so nearly identical in every particular with 
 the reduction which took place under the order 
 for tiie late removal of deposites, that it would re 
 quire exact references to documentary evidence 
 to put its credibility beyond he incredulity of the 
 senses. Not only the amount from which the re 
 duction was made, its progress, and ul imate de 
 pression, corresponded so clos.-jy as each to seem 
 to be the history of the same transaction, but they 
 began in the same month, descended in the same 
 ratio, except in the instances which operate to the 
 disadvantage of the late reduction, and at the end 
 of fif ee/i months, had reached the same point. 
 Mr. B. spoke of the reduction of deposites which 
 took place in the years 1818 and 1819, and would 
 exhibit a table to compare it with the reductions 
 under the late order for the removal of the depo- 
 ites. 
 
 THR TABLE. 
 Fifteen months reduction of Deposites. 
 
 October, 
 
 November, 
 
 December, 
 
 , anuary, 
 
 February, 
 
 March, 
 
 April, 
 
 May, 
 
 Jvinr, 
 
 July, 
 
 August, 
 
 September, 
 
 October, 
 
 November, 
 
 December, 
 
 1818-19. 
 
 $9,136,527 
 5,259,251 
 6,069,875 
 2,856,393 
 3,075,159 
 3,458,488 
 3,273,855 
 2,883,329 
 2,882,899 
 3.670,281 
 3,132,361 
 3,047,135 
 2,862,964 
 2,230,750 
 2,155.497 
 
 1833-4. 
 $9,868,435 
 8,232,311 
 5,162,260 
 4,230,509 
 3.066,561 
 2,604,233 
 2,932,866 
 3,257,345 
 2,731,988 
 2 675,43;; 
 2,609,257 
 2,155,21^ 
 2,040,354 
 2,001,639 
 1,875,772 
 
 January, 1820, 3,560,712 Jan. 1835, 3,878,951 
 Here, said Mr. B., is a similar and parallel re 
 duction of deposites in this same bank, and that at 
 a period of real pecuniary distress to itself; a pe- 
 iiod when great frauds were discovered in its 
 management; when a committee examined it, and 
 reported it guilty of violating its charter? when 
 its stock fell in a few weeks from 180 ta 90; when 
 propositions to repeal its charter, wi-hout the for 
 mality of a scire facias, were discussed in Con- 
 voice?, condemned it; and when a real necessity I never been all taken from the bankj thatthe remo\" 
 
 more rapidity, and to a far greater comparative ex 
 tent, than those which has attended the late reduc 
 tion. Yet what was the .state of the country? Dis 
 tressed, to be sure, but no panic! no convulsion in 
 the community! no cry of revolution! And why 
 this difference? If mere reduction of deposites 
 was to be attended with these effects at one time, 
 why not at the other ? Sir, said Mr. B., address 
 ing the Vice President, tlie reason is plain and ob 
 vious. The bank was unconnected with politics in 
 1819! It had no desire, at that time, to govern the 
 elections, and to overturn an administration! It 
 had no political confederates! I- had no Presi 
 dent of the bank then, to make war upon the 
 President of the United States, and to stimulate 
 and aid a great political party in crushing the Pre 
 sident, who would not sign a new charter, and in 
 crushing the House of Repre:-;entativep,which stood 
 by him. There was no resolution ihen to con 
 demn the President for a viola ion of the laws and 
 the constitution! And it ws this Ltal resolution, 
 which we now propose to expunge, vvliich did the 
 principal part of the misc iief. t hat resolution 
 was the root of the evil; the signal for panic meet 
 ings, pjmic memor uds, pan : c deputations, panic 
 speeches, and panic jubilees. That resolution, x- 
 hibited in the Senate chamber, was the scarlet 
 mantle of the consul, hung <;ut from his tent; ii 
 was the signal for battle. That resol ttion, and 
 the alarm speeches which attended it, was the 
 tocsin which started a continent from its repose ! 
 And the condemnation which followed it, and which 
 left this chamber just in time to reach the New 
 York, Virginia, and Connecticut elections, com 
 pleted the effect upon the public mind, and upon 
 the politics and commerce of the country, which 
 the measures of the bank had been co-operating 
 for three months to produce. And here he must 
 express his especial, and eternal wonder, how all 
 these movements of bank and Senate co-operating 
 together, if not by arrangement, at least by a mo.st 
 miraculous system of accidents, to endanger the 
 political rights, and to injure the pecuniary inter 
 ests of the people of the United States, could so 
 far escape the observation of the investigating 
 committee of the Senate, as not to draw from 
 them the expression of one solitary opinion, the 
 suggestion of one sirgle idea, the application r,f 
 one single remark, to the prejudice of the bank. 
 Surely they ought to have touched these scenes 
 with something more than a few meager, stinted, 
 and starved lines of faint allusion to the " new 
 measures understood to be in contemplation,-" those 
 new measures which were so falsely, so wickedlv 
 fabricated to cover the preconcerted and preme- 
 ditated plot to upset the Government by simulat 
 ing the people to revolution, through the combin 
 ed operations of pecuniary pressure and political 
 ahrm. 
 
 The table itself, Mr. B. said, was entitled to 
 the gravest recollection, not only for the compari 
 son which it suggested, but the fact of showing 
 the actual progress and history of the removal of 
 the deposites, and blasting the whole story of the 
 President s hostility to the bank. From this table 
 it is seen that the deposites, in point of fact, have 
 
19 
 
 al, so far as it went, was gradual and gentle; tha* pect any indulgence, or clemency at its hand*, 
 an average of three millions has alw.ys been 
 there; that nearly four millions was there on the 
 
 and 
 
 thi 
 
 Directors, 
 
 opinion, if 
 
 about which. 
 
 entertained by the 
 there can be fcut 
 
 first day of January la-,t; and before these facts, j I .ttle question, subsequent events very soon 
 the ftbVicated stry of the President s hostility to j proved they were not mistaken. The Pre- 
 the bank, his vind ctiveness, and violent determi 
 nation to prostrate, destroy, and ruin the institu 
 
 tion, must fall back upon its authors, and recoil 
 upon the heads of the inventois and propagators 
 of such a groundless imputation. 
 
 Mr. B. could give another fact to prove that it 
 WAS the Senate and the Bank, and the Senate 
 more than the Bank, which produced the distress 
 during the last winter. It was this: thr.t although 
 
 sident s address to his Cabinet; the tone as 
 sumed by the Secretary, Mr. Taney, in his official 
 
 communication to Congress, and the develope- 
 ments subsequently made by Mr. Duane, in his 
 address to the public, all confirm the correctness 
 of this anticipation. The measure which the 
 Bank had cause to fear was the accumulation by 
 G >vernment of large masses of its notes, and the 
 existence thereby of heavy demands against its 
 
 the curtailments of the Bank were much larger offices. (p. 16.) " In persevering in its policy 
 both before and after the session of Congress, yet j of redeeming its notes whenever presented, and 
 there was no distress in the country, except dur thereby continuing them as a universal medium of 
 
 the session, and while the alarm speeches were 
 a course of delivery on this floor. Thus, the 
 
 exchange, in opposition to complaints on that 
 head from some of the branches, i^see copies of 
 
 curtailment from the first of August to the first of correspondence,) the security of the institution, 
 October, was 4,066,000; trom the first of Octo- j and the good of the country, were alike promoted; 
 her to the meeting of Congress in December, the \ The accumulation of the notes of any one branch 
 curtailment w^-, 5,641,000; making #9,707,000 for the purpose of a run upon it by any agent of 
 in four months; and no distress in the country, the Government, when specie might be obtained 
 
 During the 
 
 of Congress, seven moiiths, at the very places of collection, in exchange for 
 
 there was a curtailment of $3,428,138; and during I the notes of the most distant branches, \v >uld 
 this lime the distress raged. From tlie rise of j have been odious in the eyes of the public, and 
 Congress, last of June, to the first of November, a j a-cribed to no other feeling than a feeling of vin^ 
 period of four months, the curtai ment was I *Victiveness." p. 22. Upon these extracts, Mr. 
 $5,270,771; and the word distress was not heard ! B. said it was clear that the committee had been 
 in the country. Why: 1 because there were no j so unfortunate as to commit a series of mistakes, 
 panic speeches. Congress had adjourned; and and every mistake to the advantage of the Bank, 
 the Bank being left to its own resources, could and to the prejudice of the Government and the 
 only injure individuals, but could not alarm and | country. First, the Government i> charged, for 
 
 convulse the community. 
 
 Mr. B. would finish this view of the conduct of 
 the Bank in creating a wanton pressure by giving 
 two instances; one was the case of the Deposite 
 Bank intlvscity; the other was the case of a Sena 
 tor opposed to the Bank. He said that the Branch 
 Bank, at this place, had made a steady run upon 
 the Metropolis Bank from the beginning to the 
 ending of the panic session. The amount of spe 
 cie which it had taken was $605,000; evidently for 
 the purpose of blowing up the pet bank in this 
 district; and during all that time the branch re 
 fused to receive the notes, or branch drafts, of any 
 other branch, or the notes of the mother Bank; or 
 checks upon any city north of Baltimore. On the 
 ptt bank in Baltimore it would take checks, be 
 cause the design was to blow up that also. Here, 
 said Mr. B. was a clear and flagrant case of pres 
 sure for specie for the mere purpose of mischief, 
 and of adclng the Metropolis Bank to the list of 
 
 the 
 the 
 
 charge is clear, though slightly veiled, that 
 President of the United States, in his vindic- 
 
 tiveness against the Bank, would cause the notes 
 of the branches to be accumulated, and pressed 
 upon them to break them. N<.-xt, the committee 
 omit to notice the very tiling actually done, in our 
 very presence here, by the Bank of the United 
 States against a deposite bank, wmch it charges 
 without foundation upon the President. Then it 
 credits the Bank with the honor of paying its notes 
 every where, and exchanging the notes of the 
 most distant branches for specie, when the case 
 of the Metropolis Bank, here in our presence, for 
 the whole period of the panic session, proves the 
 contrary, and when we have a printed document 
 of positive testimony from many banks, and brok 
 ers, testifying (hat the branches in Baltimore and 
 New York, during the fall of 1833, positively re 
 fused to redeem the notes of other branches, ot to 
 accept them in exchange for the notes of th/2 loc. 
 
 those which stopped payment at that time. And j banks, though taken in payment of revenue, and 
 here Mr. B. felt himself bound to pay his respects j that, in consequence, the notes of distant branches 
 to the Committee of Finance, that went to examine I fell below par, and were sold at a discount, or 
 the Bank last summer. That committee, at pages j lent for short periods without interest^on condi- 
 16 and 22 of their report, brought forward an un- tion of getting- specie for them; and that this 
 founded charge against the Administration of mak- 1 tinned till Mr, Tanefccoerced the 
 
 charge against the Administration of mak- tinned till Mr, Tanejfc 
 ing runs upon the branches of the United States of transfer drafts, to cause the notes of her branch- 
 Bank, to break them; while it had been silent with j es to be received and honored at other branci 
 respect to a well-founded instance of mesamena-j usual^^n all tffls, Mr. B.^aid th^^port or the 
 ture from the Bank of the United States towards { committee was most unfortunate; and showed the 
 the Deposite Bank in this District. Their ten-| necessity fora new committee to ex.imin" 
 gmge is: " The administrative department of the! institution;., a committee constitute 1 
 Government had manifested a spirit of decidedfn^ntar^pniiiljWfef^ ?i" TW^OT 
 bos ility to the, Bank. It had no reason to ,- T - - ry,- like that, of the PC: biilcc, The crc. . 
 
such a committee, Mr. B. said, was the more ne 
 cessary, as one of the main guards intended by the 
 charter to be placed over the Bank, was not there 
 during 1 the period of the pressure and panic ope 
 rations; he alluded to the Government Director*! 
 1he history of whose rejection, after such long 
 delays in the Senate to act on their nomination, is 
 known to the whole country. 
 
 The next instance of wanton pressure which 
 Mr. B. would mention, was the case of an indivi 
 dual, then a m mber of the F nate from Pennsyl 
 vania, now Mhnis-er to St. Petersburg-, (Mr. Wil 
 kins.) That gentleman had informed him, (Mr. 
 B.) towards the close of the last session, that the 
 Bank h:<d caused a scire facias to be served in his 
 house, to the alarm and distress his u ife, to revive 
 ajudgment against him, while he was here oppo 
 sing 1 the Bank. 
 
 [Mr. EWING, of Ohio, here rose, and wishrd to 
 knew of Mr. R. whether it was the Bank of the 
 United States that had issued this sctrc facias 
 against Mr. Wilkins.] 
 
 M. B. was very certain that it was. He recol 
 lected not only the information, but the time, and 
 the place, when and where it was given; it was 
 the last days of the last session, and at the window 
 beyond that door; (pointing to the door in the 
 cornerbehind Ivm;) and he added, if there is any 
 question to he raised, it can be settled without 
 sending to Russia; the scire facias, if issued, will be 
 of record in Pittsburg. Mr. B. then said, the cause 
 of this conduct to Mr. Wilkins can be understood 
 when it it is recollected that he had denied on this 
 floor the existence of the great distress which had 
 been depicted at Pittsburg; and the necessity that 
 the Bank was under to push him at that time can 
 be appreciated by seeing that two-and-fifty mem 
 bers of Congrt ss, as reported by the Finance Com 
 mittee, had received " accommodations" from the 
 Bank add its branches in the same year that a Se 
 nator, and a citizen of Pennsylvania, opposed to 
 the Bank, was thus proceeded against.* 
 
 Mr. B. returned to the resolution which it was 
 proposed to expunge. He said it ought to go. It 
 was the root of the evil, the father of the mischief, 
 the source of the injury, the box of Pandora, which 
 had filled the land with calamity and consternation 
 for six long months. It was that resolution, far 
 more than the conduct of the Bank, which raised 
 the panic, sunk the price of property, crushed 
 many merchants, impressed the country with the 
 terror of an impending revolution, ani frightened 
 
 so many good people out of the rational exercise 
 of their elective franchise at the spring el> ciions. 
 All these evils have now passed away. The pirnc 
 has subsided; the price of produce, and property, 
 has recovered from its cepression, a id risen be 
 yond its former bounds. The country is tranquil, 
 prospeiotis, and happy. The States which had 
 been frightened from their propriety at the spring 
 elections, have regained their self command. Now, 
 with the total vanishing of its Affects, let the cause 
 vanish also. Let this resolution, for the condem 
 nation of President Jackson, be expunged from 
 the journals of the Senate! Let it be effaced, 
 erased, blotted out, obliterated from the face of 
 that page on which it should never have been 
 written! Would to God it could be expunged 
 from the pag-e of all history, and from the memory 
 of all mankind. Woul 1 that, so far as it is con 
 cerned, the minds of the whole existing genera 
 tion should be dipped in the fabulous and oblivi- 
 cus waters of the river Lethe. But these wishes 
 are vain. The resolution must survive and live. 
 History will record it; memory will retain it; tradi 
 tion will hand it down. In the very act of expur 
 gation, it lives; for what is taken from one pag< j , is 
 placed on another. All atonement for the unfor 
 tunate and calamitous act of the Senate, is imper 
 fect and inadequate. Expunge if we can; still the 
 only t- fleet will be to express our solemn convic 
 tions, by that obliteration, that such a resolution 
 ought never to have soiled the pages of our jour 
 nal. This is all that we can do; and this much we 
 are bound to do, by every obi g-ation of justice to 
 the President, whose name has been attainted; by 
 every consideration of duty to the country, whose 
 voice demands this reparation; by our regard to 
 the constitution, which has been trampled under 
 foot; by respect to the House of Representatives, 
 whose function has been ururped; by self-respect, 
 which requires the Senate to vindicate its justice, 
 to correct its errors, and re-establish its high name 
 for equity, dignity, and moderation. To err, is hu 
 man; not to err, is divine; to correct error, is the 
 work ofsupereminent, and also superhuman moral 
 excellence; and this exalted work it now remains 
 for the Senate to perform. 
 
 * At pages 37 and 38 of the Report, the Finance 
 Committee fully acquits the Bank of all injurious 
 discriminations between borrowers and applicants, 
 of different politics. 
 

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