The American Quarterly Review Part 12

But all that is great, or good, or valuable, in this world, must be attained by labour, perseverance, courage, and integrity. Liberty is too valuable a blessing to be gained or preserved without the exercise of these great virtues. It must have its victims, and its charter must be sealed with blood. A people afraid of a bayonet, are not likely to be free while Europe swarms with standing armies, having little or no community of interests or feeling with those who maintain them by the sweat of their brow. When the oppressed states of Switzerland, sent forth patriots who made a breach in the forest of German bayonets opposed to them, by circling them in their arms, and receiving them into their bosoms, they deserved to be free--they became free, and their liberties are still preserved. But so long as a host often thousand brawling and hungry malcontents, can be quieted and dispersed by the sound of a bugle, the clattering of a horse's hoofs, or the glittering of a musket barrel, can such people expect to be free? a.s.suredly not, we think. No where will despotism or aristocracy peaceably resign their long established preponderance without a struggle, and like our own revolution, the contest will at last come to the crisis--"_we must fight, Mr. Speaker, we must fight_," as said the intrepid Patrick Henry,--and we did fight. So must Europe if it expects emanc.i.p.ation. All the governments of that quarter of the globe, are now sustained by a military force--and by force only can they be overthrown or modified, to suit the great changes which have taken place in the feelings and relative situation of the different orders of society.

That the present state and future prospects of that renowned and ill.u.s.trious quarter of the globe, are ominous of a continued succession of storms and troubles, we think appears too obvious. The night that is approaching, will be long and dark, in all human probability--it may end in a total regeneration--in a confirmed and inflexible despotism; or in that precise state of things which characterized what are called, the dark ages of Europe--in the establishment of a hundred petty states, governed by a hundred petty tyrants, eternally at variance, and agreeing in nothing but in oppressing the people. Great standing armies are at present the conservators of the great powers of Europe, and public sentiment is no longer the sole or princ.i.p.al cement of empires; when these are gone, as they must be, ere the nations which they oppress can be free, then all the little sectional and provincial jealousies and antipathies, every real or imaginary opposition of interests, and even feelings of personal rivalry, will have an opportunity of coming into full play, and the result may very probably be, the erection of a vast many petty states, which will never be brought to act together in any great system of policy. Thus situated, they will never be able to make head against the growing power of the vast states of the new world, which whatever may be their minor causes of difference, will naturally unite in those views of commercial policy, which being common to all, will be sought by a common effort.

The South American states, it is true, have not yet realized the blessings of emanc.i.p.ation, partly owing to their inexperience in the practical secrets of civil liberty; partly to the want of public virtue in the people, and their rulers, and partly, as we are much inclined to suspect, to the secret intrigues of more than one European power. But their natural and inevitable tendency is, we believe, towards a stable government, combining a complete independence of foreign powers, with such a portion of civil liberty as may suit their present circ.u.mstances and situation. They are serving their apprentices.h.i.+p--they will soon be out of their time, and may safely set up for themselves.

But, however doubtful may be the final result of the great struggle between the kings and the people--or of the aristocracy and the people--for this seems to be the real struggle after all--whatever may be its final result, one thing is certain as fate. While it continues, it must inevitably arrest the prosperity of Europe, such as it is, and force it to retrograde for a time. Instead of devoting their attention to the interests of the nation abroad, and encouraging the industry and intelligence of the people at home, kings will be employed in watching and restraining their subjects. Fearing the intelligence and wealth, as the means of increasing their discontents as well as their power, they will seek to diminish both by new restraints or new exactions; and thus the best ends of government will be perverted to purposes of ignorance and oppression. This is the history of the degradation, and consequent internal weakness of all nations, and a perseverance in such a course in Europe, will only afford another example, that the same effects proceed from similar causes, every where, and at all times.

In the mean while, as oppression, civil wars, internal disaffection, anarchy, and expatriation of wealth and numbers, all combined, are gradually undermining the strength of Europe, and draining her veins, the new world will be, in all human probability, every day acquiring what the old is losing. If she once pa.s.s the other, if it be only by the breadth of a single hair, it is scarcely to be antic.i.p.ated that age and decrepitude will ever be able to regain the vantage ground, against the primitive energies of vigorous youth. Once ahead, and the new world will remain so, until the ever revolving course of time, and the revolutions it never fails to accomplish, shall perhaps again transfer to Asia the sceptre of arts, science, literature, power, and dominion, which was wrested from her by Europe.

To realize these bold antic.i.p.ations, nothing seems necessary but for the people of the United States to bear in mind, that they are the patriarchs of modern emanc.i.p.ation--that the spark which animates the people of Europe was caught from them--that they led the way in the _great common cause of all mankind_--that the eyes of the world are upon them--and that they stand under a solemn obligation to do nothing themselves, to suffer their leaders to do nothing, which shall bring the sacred name of liberty into disgrace, or endanger the integrity of our great confederation. "_While other nations are moulding their governments after ours, may we not destroy the pattern._"

[Footnote 4: Hutchinson's History of Ma.s.sachusetts, Vol. I, pages 84, 85.]

ART. VII.--_Speeches and Forensic Arguments, by_ DANIEL WEBSTER: 8vo. pp. 520. Boston: 1830.

It has often enough been objected to books written and published in the United States, that they want a national air, tone, and temper.

Unhappily, too, the complaint has not unfrequently been well founded; but the volume before us is a striking exception to all such remarks. It consists of a collection of Mr. Webster's Public Addresses, Speeches in Congress, and Forensic Arguments, printed chiefly from pamphlets, already well known; and it is marked throughout, to an uncommon degree, with the best characteristics of a generous nationality. No one, indeed, can open it, without perceiving that, whatever it contains, must have been the work of one born and educated among our free inst.i.tutions,--formed in their spirit, and animated and sustained by their genius and power.

The subjects discussed, and the interests maintained in it, are entirely American; and many of them are so important, that they are already become prominent parts of our history. As we turn over its pages, therefore, and see how completely Mr. Webster has identified himself with the great inst.i.tutions of the country, and how they, in their turn, have inspired and called forth the greatest efforts of his uncommon mind, we feel as if the sources of his strength, and the mystery by which it controuls us, were, in a considerable degree, interpreted. We feel that, like the fabulous giant of antiquity, he gathers it from the very earth that produced him; and our sympathy and interest, therefore, are excited, not less by the principle on which his power so much depends, than by the subjects and occasions on which it is so strikingly put forth. We understand better than we did before, not only why we have been drawn to him, but why the attraction that carried us along, was at once so cogent and so natural.

When, however, such a man appears before the nation, the period of his youth and training is necessarily gone by. It is only as a distinguished member of the General Government,--probably in one of the two Houses of Congress, that he first comes, as it were, into the presence of the great ma.s.s of his countrymen. But, before he can arrive there, he has, in the vast majority of cases, reached the full stature of his strength, and developed all the prominent peculiarities of his character. Much, therefore, of what is most interesting in relation to him,--much of what goes to make up his individuality and momentum, and without which, neither his elevation nor his conduct can be fully understood or estimated, is known only in the circle of his private friends, or, at most, in that section of the country from which he derives his origin.

In this way, we are ignorant of much that it concerns us to know about many of our distinguished statesmen; but about none, probably, are we more relatively ignorant than about Mr. Webster, who is eminently one of those persons, whose professional and political career cannot be fairly or entirely understood, unless we have some acquaintance with the circ.u.mstances of his origin, and of his early history, taken in connection with his whole public life. We were, therefore, disappointed, on opening the present volume, not to find prefixed to it a full biographical notice of him. We were, indeed, so much disappointed and felt so fully persuaded, that neither the contents of the volume itself, nor the sources of its author's power, nor his position before the nation, could be properly comprehended without it, that we determined at once to connect whatever we should say on any of these subjects, by such notices of his life, as we might be able to collect under unfavourable circ.u.mstances. We only regret that our efforts have not been more successful,--and that our notices, therefore, are few and imperfect.

Mr. Webster was born in Salisbury, a farming town of New-Hamps.h.i.+re, at the head of the Merrimack, in 1782. His father, always a farmer, was a man of a strongly marked and vigorous character,--full of decision, integrity, firmness, and good sense. He served under Lord Amherst, in the French war, that ended in 1763; and, in the war of the Revolution, he commanded a company chiefly composed of his own towns-people and friends, who gladly fought under his leading nearly every campaign, and at whose head he was found, in the battle of Bennington, at the White Plains, and at West-Point, when Arnold's treason was discovered. He died about the year 1806; and, at the time of his death, had filled, for many years, the office of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, for the state of New-Hamps.h.i.+re.

But, during the early part of Mr. Webster's life, the place of his birth, now the centre of a flouris.h.i.+ng and happy population, was on the frontiers of civilization. His father had been one of the very first settlers, and had even pushed further into the wilderness than the rest, so that the smoke sent up amidst the solitude of the forest, from the humble dwelling in which Mr. Webster was himself born, marked, for some time, the ultimate limit of New England adventure at the North.

Undoubtedly, in any other country, the sufferings, privations, and discouragements inevitable in such a life, would have precluded all thought of intellectual culture. But, in New England, ever since the first free school was established amidst the woods that covered the peninsula of Boston, in 1636, the school-master has been found on the border line between savage and civilized life, often indeed with an axe to open his own path, but always looked up to with respect, and always carrying with him a valuable and preponderating influence.

It is to this characteristic trait of New England policy, that we owe the first development of Mr. Webster's powers, and the original determination of his whole course in life; for, unless the school had sought him in the forest, his father's means would not have been sufficient to send him down into the settlements to seek the school. The first upward step, therefore, would have been wanting; and it is not at all probable, that any subsequent exertions on his own part, would have enabled him to retrieve it. The value of such a benefit cannot, indeed, be measured; but it seems to have been his good fortune to be able in part, at least, to repay it; for no man has explained with such simplicity and force as he has explained them, the very principles and foundations on which the free schools of New England rest, or shown, with such a feeling of their importance and value, how truly the free inst.i.tutions of our country must be built on the education of all. We allude now to his remarks in the Convention of Ma.s.sachusetts, where, speaking of the support of schools, he says:--

"In this particular we may be allowed to claim a merit of a very high and peculiar character. This commonwealth, with other of the New England states, early adopted, and has constantly maintained the principle, that it is the undoubted right, and the bounden duty of government, to provide for the instruction of all youth. That which is elsewhere left to chance, or to charity, we secure by law.

For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation, in proportion to his property, and we look not to the question, whether he, himself, have or have not children to be benefited by the education for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We seek to prevent, in some measure, the extension of the penal code, by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of virtue, and of knowledge, in an early age. We hope to excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense of character, by enlarging the capacity, and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere; to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law, and the denunciations of religion, against immorality and crime. We hope for a security, beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of enlightened and well principled moral sentiment. We hope to continue and to prolong the time, when, in the villages and farm houses of New England, there may be undisturbed sleep, within unbarred doors. And knowing that our government rests directly on the public will, that we may preserve it, we endeavour to give a safe and proper direction to that public will. We do not, indeed, expect all men to be philosophers, or statesmen; but we confidently trust, and our expectation of the duration of our system of government rests on that trust, that by the diffusion of general knowledge, and good and virtuous sentiments, the political fabric may be secure, as well against open violence and overthrow, as against the slow but sure undermining of licentiousness." pages 209, 210.

"I rejoice, Sir, that every man in this community may call all property his own, so far as he has occasion for it, to furnish for himself and his children the blessings of religious instruction and the elements of knowledge. This celestial, and this earthly light, he is ent.i.tled to by the fundamental laws. It is every poor man's undoubted birth-right, it is the great blessing which this const.i.tution has secured to him, it is his solace in life, and it may well be his consolation in death, that his country stands pledged, by the faith which it has plighted to all its citizens, to protect his children from ignorance, barbarism and vice." p. 211.

How Mr. Webster's education was advanced immediately after he left these primary schools, is, we believe, not known. It was, however, with great sacrifices on the part of his family, and severe struggles on his own.

At last, when he was fifteen or sixteen years old, after a very imperfect preparation, he was entered at Dartmouth College; at least, so we infer, for he was graduated there in 1801. What were his princ.i.p.al or favourite pursuits during the three or four years of his academic life, we do not know. We remember, however, to have met formerly, one of his cla.s.smates, who spoke with the liveliest interest of the generous and delightful spirit he showed among his earliest friends and compet.i.tors, in the midst of whom, he manifested, from the first, aspirations entirely beyond his condition, and, when the first year was pa.s.sed, developed faculties which left all rivals.h.i.+p far behind him. Indeed, it is known, in many ways, that, by those who were acquainted with him at this period of his life, he was already regarded as a marked man; and that, to the more sagacious of them, the honours of his subsequent career have not been unexpected.

Immediately after leaving college, he began the study of the law in the place of his nativity, with Mr. Thompson, soon afterwards a member of Congress; a gentleman who, from the elevation of his character, was able to comprehend that of his pupil and contribute to unfold its powers. But the _res augustae domi_ pressed hard upon him. He was compelled to exert himself for his own support; and his professional studies were frequently interrupted and impaired by pursuits, which ended only in obtaining what was needful for his mere subsistence.

Circ.u.mstances connected with his condition and wants at this time, led him to Boston, and carried him, when there, into the office of Mr. Gore.

This was, undoubtedly, one of the deciding circ.u.mstances of his life.

Mr. Gore was a lawyer of eminence, and a _gentleman_, in the loftiest and most generous meaning of the word. His history was already connected with that of the country. He had been appointed district attorney of the United States for Ma.s.sachusetts, by Was.h.i.+ngton; he had served in England as our commissioner under Jay's treaty; and he was afterwards governor of his native state, and its senator in Congress. His whole character, private, political, and professional, from its elevation, purity and dignity, was singularly fitted to influence a young man of quick and generous feelings, who already perceived within himself the impulse of talents and the stirrings of an ambition whose direction was yet to be determined. Mr. Webster felt, that it was well for him to be there; and Mr. Gore obtained an influence over his young mind, which the peculiarly kind and frank manners of the instructer permitted early to ripen into an intimacy and friends.h.i.+p that were interrupted only by death.

Mr. Webster finished the study of his profession in Boston, and was there admitted to the bar in 1805;--Mr. Gore, who presented him, venturing, at the time, to make a prediction to the court respecting his pupil's future eminence, which has been hardly more than fulfilled by all his present fame. At first, he began the practice of his profession in Boscawen, a small village adjacent to the place of his birth; but in 1807, he removed to Portsmouth, where, no doubt, he thought he was establis.h.i.+ng himself for life.

As a young lawyer, about to lay the foundations for future success, his portion could, perhaps, hardly have been rendered more fortunate and happy than it was now in Portsmouth. He rose rapidly in general regard, and was, therefore, almost at once, ranked with the first in his profession in his native state. Of course, his a.s.sociations and intercourse were with the first minds. And, happily for one like him, the presiding judge of the highest tribunal in New-Hamps.h.i.+re was then Mr. Smith, afterwards governor of the state, whose native clearness of perception, acuteness, and power, united to faithful and accurate learning in his profession, and the soundest and most practical wisdom in the fulfilment of his duties on the bench, and in his intercourse with the bar, gave him naturally and necessarily great influence over its younger members. Mr. Webster, as the most prominent among them, came much in contact with him, and profited much from his sagacious foresight and wise and discriminating kindness. He came, too, still more in contact with Mr. Mason, afterwards a senator in Congress, and then and still the leading counsel in New-Hamps.h.i.+re. Mr. Mason was his senior by several years, but there was no other adversary capable of encountering him; and the intellect with which Mr. Webster was thus called to contend on equal terms was one of the highest order, of ample resources, and of the quickest penetration; whose original reach, firm grasp, and unsparing logic, left no safety for an adversary, but in a vigour, readiness and skill, which could never be taken unprepared or at disadvantage. It was a severe school; but there is little reason to doubt, Mr. Webster owes to its stern and rugged discipline much of that intellectual training and power, which render him, in his turn, so formidable an adversary. He owes to it, also, notwithstanding their uniform and daily opposition in court, the no less uniform personal friends.h.i.+p of Mr. Mason in private life.

It was in the midst, however, of this period, both of discipline and success as a lawyer, in New-Hamps.h.i.+re, that he entered public life. In the government of his native state, we believe, he never took office of any kind; and his first political place, therefore, was in the thirteenth Congress of the United States. He was chosen in 1812, soon after the declaration of war; and as he was then hardly thirty years old, he must have been one of the youngest members of that important Congress. His position there was difficult, and he felt it to be so. He was opposed to the policy of the war; he represented a state earnestly opposed to it; and he had always, especially in the eloquent and powerful memorial from the great popular meeting in Rockingham, expressed himself fully and frankly on the whole subject. But he was now called into the councils of the government, which was carrying on the war itself. He felt it to be his duty, therefore, to make no factious opposition to the measures essential to maintain the dignity and honour of the country; to make no opposition for opposition's sake; though, at the same time, he felt it to be no less his duty, to take good heed that neither the const.i.tution, nor the essential interests of the nation, were endangered or sacrificed--_ne quid detrimenti respublica accipiat_.

This, indeed, seems to have been his motto up to the time of the peace; and his tone in relation to it is always manly, bold, and decisive. When Mr. Monroe's bill for a sort of conscription was introduced, he joined with Mr. Eppes, and other friends of the administration, in defeating a project, which, except in a moment of great anxiety and excitement, would probably have found no defenders. But when, on the other hand, the bill for "encouraging enlistments" was before the house, he held, in January 1814, the following strong and striking language, in which, now the pa.s.sions of that stormy period are hushed, all will sympathize.

"The humble aid which it would be in my power to render to measures of government, shall be given cheerfully, if government will pursue measures which I can conscientiously support. If, even now, failing in an honest and sincere attempt to procure a just and honourable peace, it will return to measures of defence and protection, such as reason, and common sense, and the public opinion, all call for, my vote shall not be withholden from the means. Give up your futile projects of invasion. Extinguish the fires that blaze on your inland frontiers. Establish perfect safety and defence there by adequate force. Let every man that sleeps on your soil sleep in security. Stop the blood that flows from the veins of unarmed yeomanry, and women and children.

Give to the living time to bury and lament their dead, in the quietness of private sorrow. Having performed this work of beneficence and mercy on your inland border, turn, and look with the eye of justice and compa.s.sion on your vast population along the coast. Unclench the iron grasp of your embargo. Take measures for that end before another sun sets upon you. With all the war of the enemy on your commerce, if you would cease to make war upon it yourselves, you would still have some commerce. That commerce would give you some revenue. Apply that revenue to the augmentation of your navy. That navy, in turn, will protect your commerce. Let it no longer be said, that not one s.h.i.+p of force, built by your hands since the war, yet floats upon the ocean. Turn the current of your efforts into the channel, which national sentiment has already worn broad and deep to receive it. A naval force, competent to defend your coast against considerable armaments, to convoy your trade, and perhaps raise the blockade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may be realized. If, then, the war must continue, go to the ocean. If you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theatre, where alone those rights can be defended.

Thither every indication of your fortunes points you. There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water's edge. They are lost in attachment to the national character, on the element where that character is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the whole abundance of the national resource. In time, you may be enabled to redress injuries in the place where they may be offered; and, if need be, to accompany your own flag throughout the world with the protection of your own cannon."[5] Speech, pp. 14, 15.

Later in the same Congress, the subject of the establishment and principles of a national bank came into discussion, and the finances of the country being then greatly embarra.s.sed, this subject rose to paramount importance, and absorbed much of the attention of Congress up to the moment when the annunciation of peace put a period, for the time, to all such debates. On the whole matter of the bank and the currency, Congress was divided into three parties. First, those who were against a national bank under any form. These persons consisted chiefly of the remains of the old party, which had originally opposed the establishment of the first bank in Was.h.i.+ngton's time, in 1791, and in 1811 had prevented the renewal of its charter. They were, however, generally, friends of the existing administration, whose position now called strongly for the creation of a new bank; and, therefore, while they usually voted on preliminary and incidental measures with the favourers of a bank, they voted, on the final pa.s.sage of the bill, against it; so that it was much easier to defeat the whole of any one project, than to carry through any modification of it. Second, there was a party consisting almost entirely of friends of the administration, who wished for a bank, provided it were such a one as they thought would not only regulate the currency of the country, and facilitate the operations of the government, but also afford present and important aid by heavy loans, which the bank was to be compelled to make, and to enable it to do which, it was to be relieved from the necessity of paying its notes in specie;--in other words, it was a party that wished to authorize and establish a paper currency for the whole country. The third party wished for a bank with a moderate capital, compelled always to redeem its notes with specie, and at liberty to judge for itself, when it would, and when it would not, make loans to the government.

The second party, of course, was the one that introduced into Congress the project for a bank at this time. The bill was originally presented to the Senate; and its main features were, that the bank should absorb a large amount of the depreciated public debt of the United States, and grant to the government heavy loans on the security of a similar debt to be created; that its capital should consist of fifty millions of dollars, of which five millions only were to be specie, and the rest depreciated government securities; and that the bank, when required, should lend the government thirty millions. At the time when this plan was brought forward, all the numerous state banks south of New-England had refused to redeem their notes, or, as it was called "to ears polite," had "suspended specie payments," in consequence of which, their notes had fallen in value from 10 to 25 per cent., and specie, of course, had risen proportionally in value, and disappeared from circulation entirely. To afford the contemplated national bank any chance for carrying on its operations, or even for beginning them, it was to be authorized "to suspend specie payments," which meant, that it was to be authorized never to begin them; for, without this authority, their specie would be drained the moment their notes should be issued equal to its amount. On the other hand, all the taxes and revenues of the government were to be receivable in the paper of the bank, however much it might fall in value. In short, the whole scheme was one of those vast Serbonian bogs, where, from the days of Laws's Mississippi Company, armies whole of legislators and projectors have sunk, without leaving even a monument behind them to warn their followers of their fate.

We must not, however, be extravagantly astonished, that a project which we now know was in its nature so wild and dangerous, should have found favourers and advocates. The finances of the country were then in a critical, and even distressing position; and all men were anxious to devise some means to relieve them. A large part of the nation, too, sincerely entertained the chimerical notion, now universally exploded, that it was practicable to establish and maintain a safe and stable paper currency, even when not convertible into specie at the pleasure of the holder; and the example of England and its national bank was referred to with effect, though, from its history since, the same example could now be referred to with double effect on the other side of the discussion. After an earnest and able debate, then, the bill, on the whole, pa.s.sed the Senate, and it was understood that a considerable majority of the House of Representatives was in its favour.

When brought there on the 9th of December, 1814, it excited a very animated discussion, which, with various interruptions from the forms and rules of the House, references to committees, and occasional adjournments, was continued till the 2d of January. In this protracted debate Mr. Webster took a conspicuous part; and his efforts, of which the speech now published is but an inconsiderable item, did much to avert the threatened evil, and to establish his reputation, not merely as an eloquent and powerful debater, which had already been settled in the previous session, but as a sagacious and sound statesman.

His princ.i.p.al opposition to the bill was made on the last day of its discussion. He then introduced a series of resolutions, bringing the bank proposed within the limits of the specie-paying principle, and taking off from it the restraints, which placed it too much within the power of the government to make it useful as a monied inst.i.tution, either to the finances or to the commerce of the country. The objections to the plan then before Congress, and the disasters that would probably follow its adoption, he portrayed in the following strong language, which none, however, will now think to have been too strong.

"The capital of the bank, then, will be five millions of specie, and forty-five millions of government stocks. In other words, the bank will possess five millions of dollars, and the government will owe it forty-five millions. This debt from government, the bank is restrained from selling during the war, and government is excused from paying until it shall see fit. The bank is also to be under obligation to loan government thirty millions of dollars on demand, to be repaid, not when the convenience or necessity of the bank may require, but when debts due to the bank, from government, are paid; that is, when it shall be the good pleasure of government. This sum of thirty millions is to supply the necessities of government, and to supersede the occasion of other loans. This loan will doubtless be made on the first day of the existence of the bank, because the public wants can admit of no delay. Its condition, then, will be, that it has five millions of specie, if it has been able to obtain so much, and a debt of seventy-five millions, no part of which it can either sell or call in, due to it from government.

"The loan of thirty millions to government, can only be made by an immediate issue of bills to that amount. If these bills should return, the bank will not be able to pay them.

This is certain, and to remedy this inconvenience, power is given to the directors, by the act, to suspend, at their own discretion, the payment of their notes, until the President of the United States shall otherwise order. The President will give no such order, because the necessities of government will compel it to draw on the bank till the bank becomes as necessitous as itself. Indeed, whatever orders may be given or withheld it will be utterly impossible for the bank to pay its notes. No such thing is expected from it. The first note it issues will be dishonoured on its return, and yet it will continue to pour out its paper, so long as government can apply it in any degree to its purposes.

"What sort of an inst.i.tution, sir, is this? It looks less like a bank, than a department of government. It will be properly the paper-money department. Its capital is government debts; the amount of its issues will depend on government necessities; government, in effect, absolves itself from its own debts to the bank, and by way of compensation absolves the bank from its own contracts with others. This is, indeed, a wonderful scheme of finance. The government is to grow rich, because it is to borrow without the obligation of repaying, and is to borrow of a bank which issues paper, without liability to redeem it. If this bank, like other inst.i.tutions which dull and plodding common sense has erected, were to pay its debts, it must have some limits to its issues of paper, and therefore, there would be a point beyond which it could not make loans to government.

This would fall short of the wishes of the contrivers of this system. They provide for an unlimited issue of paper, in an entire exemption from payment. They found their bank, in the first place, on the discredit of government, and then hope to enrich government out of the insolvency of their bank. With them, poverty itself is the main source of supply, and bankruptcy a mine of inexhaustible treasure."

Pp. 224-5.

The resolutions proposed by Mr. Webster, and supported in this speech, were not pa.s.sed. Probably he did not expect them to pa.s.s, when he proposed them; but the same day, the main question was taken upon the pa.s.sage of the bill itself; and, as it was rejected by the casting vote of the speaker, there can be no reasonable doubt, that without his exertions this portentous absurdity would not have been defeated. It is but justice, however, to the supporters of the measure, to say, that the mischievous consequences of its adoption, were by no means so apparent then as they are now. We have since had no little experience on the whole matter. It required all the power and influence of the general government, and of the present sound and specie-paying Bank of the United States, acting vigorously in concert for several years after the war, to relieve the country from the flood of depreciated notes of the state banks with which it was inundated, and to restore a safe and uniform currency. When or how this evil could have been remedied, if, at the very close of the war, it had been almost indefinitely increased by the establishment of a vast machine, issuing every day as much irredeemable paper as would be taken at any and every discount, and thus co-operating with the evil itself, instead of opposing it, is more than any man will now be bold enough to conjecture. We should, no doubt, have been in bondage to it to this hour, and probably left it as a yoke upon the necks of our children.

But, at the time referred to, the necessities of the government were urgent; and, on motion of Mr. Webster, the rule that prevented a reconsideration at the same session of a subject thus disposed of, was suspended the very next day, and a bill for a bank was on the same day, January 3, recommitted to a select committee. On the 6th, the committee reported a specie-paying bank, with a much diminished capital, which was carried in the house, with the fewest possible forms, on the 7th; Mr.

Webster and most of his friends voting for it. It pa.s.sed the senate, too, though with some difficulty; but was refused by the president, on the ground, that it was not sufficient to meet the exigencies of the case, which, indeed, we now know, no bank would have been able to meet.

This project, however, being thus rejected, another was immediately introduced into the senate, the basis of which was to be laid, like that of the first bank proposed, in a paper currency. It pa.s.sed that body; but on being brought into the house met a severe and determined opposition, which ceased only when, on the 17th, the news of peace being received, the bill was indefinitely postponed.

Mr. Webster's exertions, however, on the subject of the currency, did not cease with the overthrow of the paper bank system. He was re-elected to New-Hamps.h.i.+re for the fourteenth Congress, and sat there during the sessions of 1815-16; and 1816-17. The whole state of things in the nation was now changed. The war was over, and the great purpose of sound statesmans.h.i.+p was therefore to bring the healing and renovating influences of peace into the administration and finances of the country.

The present bank was chartered in April 1816, and was placed, substantially on the principles maintained in Mr. Webster's resolutions of the preceding year. But still it seemed doubtful whether this inst.i.tution, however wisely managed, would alone have power enough to restore a sound currency. The small depreciated notes of the state banks south of New-England, still filled the land with their loathed intrusion; and, what was worse, the revenue of the general government, receivable at the different custom-houses, was collected in this degraded paper, to the great injury of the finances of the country, and to the still greater injury of the property of private individuals, who, in different states, paid, of course, different rates of duties to the treasury, according to the value of the paper medium in which it happened to be received. Mr. Webster foresaw the mischiefs that must follow from this state of things, if a remedy were not speedily applied.

He, therefore, in the same month of April 1816, introduced a resolution, the effect of which was, to require the revenue of the United States to be collected and received only in the legal currency of the United States, or in bills equal to that currency in value.

In stating the nature of the evil, after showing by what means the paper of the state banks south of New-England had become depreciated; he says,--

"What still farther increases the evil is, that this bank paper being the issue of very many inst.i.tutions, situated in different parts of the country, and possessing different degrees of credit, the depreciation has not been, and is not now, uniform throughout the United States. It is not the same at Baltimore as at Philadelphia, nor the same at Philadelphia as at New-York. In New-England, the banks have not stopped payment in specie, and of course their paper has not been depressed at all. But the notes of banks which have ceased to pay specie, have nevertheless been, and still are, received for duties and taxes in the places where such banks exist. The consequence of all this is, that the people of the United States pay their duties and taxes in currencies of different values, in different places. In other words, taxes and duties are higher in some places than they are in others, by as much as the value of gold and silver is greater than the value of the several descriptions of bank paper which are received by government. This difference in relation to the paper of the District where we now are, is twenty-five per cent. Taxes and duties, therefore, collected in Ma.s.sachusetts, are one quarter higher than the taxes and duties which are collected, by virtue of the same laws, in the District of Columbia." Pp. 233-4.

A little further on, after showing that if this state of things is not changed by the government, it will be likely to change the government itself, he adds,--

"It is our business to foresee this danger, and to avoid it.

There are some political evils which are seen as soon as they are dangerous, and which alarm at once as well the people as the government. Wars and invasions therefore are not always the most certain destroyers of national prosperity. They come in no questionable shape. They announce their own approach, and the general security is preserved by the general alarm. Not so with the evils of a debased coin, a depreciated paper currency, or a depressed and falling public credit. Not so with the plausible and insidious mischiefs of a paper money system. These insinuate themselves in the shape of facilities, accommodation, and relief. They hold out the most fallacious hope of an easy payment of debts, and a lighter burden of taxation. It is easy for a portion of the people to imagine that government may properly continue to receive depreciated paper, because they have received it, and because it is more convenient to obtain it than to obtain other paper, or specie. But on these subjects it is, that government ought to exercise its own peculiar wisdom and caution. It is supposed to possess on subjects of this nature, somewhat more of foresight than has fallen to the lot of individuals. It is bound to foresee the evil before every man feels it, and to take all necessary measures to guard against it, although they may be measures attended with some difficulty and not without temporary inconvenience. In my humble judgment, the evil demands the immediate attention of Congress. It is not certain, and in my opinion not probable, that it will ever cure itself. It is more likely to grow by indulgence, while the remedy which must in the end be applied, will become less efficacious by delay.

"The only power which the general government possesses of restraining the issues of the state banks, is to refuse their notes in the receipts of the treasury. This power it can exercise now, or at least it can provide now for exercising in reasonable time, because the currency of some part of the country is yet sound, and the evil is not universal. If it should become universal, who, that hesitates now, will then propose any adequate means of relief? If a measure, like the bill of yesterday, or the resolutions of to-day, can hardly pa.s.s here now, what hope is there that any efficient measure will be adopted hereafter?" pp. 235-6.