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I "t- i i J ) i I V TIIOJIVS LORL(i, Editor anil Proprietor. THE CONSTITUTION AN THE" UNION OF THE STATES....THEY MUST BE PRESERVED.' 99 RALEIGH, N C. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 1838; Three XZottar m per&nnmn. TERMS. THE NORTH CAROLINA STANDARD is published weekly, at three dollars per annum payable half-yearly in advance; but it will be necessary for those-living at a distance, or out of the State, to pay an entire year in advance. A subscriber failing to give notice of h3 desire to dis continue at the expiration of the period for which he may have paid, will be considered as having subscribed anew, and the paper continued, at the option of the Editor, until ordered to be stopped; but no paper will be discontinued, until all arrear ages are paid. AD VEIt TISEMENTS, not exceeding four teen lines, will be inserted one time for one dollar, and, twenty-five cents fer each subsequent inser tion ; those of greater length in proportion. If the number of insertions be not marked on them, they will be continued until ordered out. Court Advertisements and Sheriff's Sales, will he charged ticenty-fice per cent, higher than the usual rates. '- . A deduction of 33 per cent, will be made to those who advertise by the year. Letters to the Editor must come free of postage, or they may not be attended to. SPEUCfl OF Mr. Strange, of North Carolina, On the Bill Imposing Additional Duties as De positaries in certain cases, on Public Officers, $ c. (Continued from our last.") But the highest claim, after all, which the origi nal bill has over the substitute, is, that the one is in strict conformity with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, while the other violates both. The first clause of the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution declares: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties,..iro posrs, and excises." For what purpose l ' "To pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare, of the United States," ect. But some time must, of course, intervene between - the said collection and the application of the money to the purpose for which it was so raised ; and the question is, what is to become of it in the mean time? The Constitution 'informs us, in the sixth clause of the ninth section: "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law," ect. In the Trea sury, then, the money must be placed when raised. True, the Constitution does not so directly declare, but it says it shall not be drawn thence ; and sure ly, the interdiction against its withdrawal distinct ly implies that it must be there placed. And can any one, I ask, imagine that the Treasury in con templation was a bank? If such a thins: was in contemplation, it was easy to have so declared ; but it was not so declared. It is not said money shall not be drawn out of the United States Bank, deposite bank, but out of the Treasury ; and we learn by the debates in convention that the framers of the Constitution were not ignorant of banks, but purposely declined granting to Congress the power of chartering one. J$ut the word 1 reasury nad a plain and significant meaning, understood by every one as a place where individuals or communities kept their treasure, and in that plain, popular sense was used. But alloAv, for the sake of the argument, that the Government might, in the general meaning of the word Treasury, elect to make a bank such Trea sury, yet surely, under the clause I have just read, it could not make such bank the Treasury by a general deposite ; for, whether the Treasurer be the cashier of a bank, or whatever complication of character may belong to him, he cannot withdraw money from the Treasury but'in consequence of appropriations made by law. Will it be said that a general authority granted by Congress to the cash ier to withdraw and replace money in the Treasu- ry, is an appropriation made by law ? Does not such an interpretation reduce the provision to an empty sound, and repeal it as to all substantial op erations ? But it may be said that the specific au thority to lend out the money is an appropriation made by law. From whence does Congress de rive the authority to make such an appropriation? The purposes for which Congress is authorized to collect revenue, are, expressly set forth in the first clause of the eighth section of the first article : "to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States." To lend money is not one of them. It will be said that, having the money, we have a right to lend it. This right is exceedingly doubtful; but grant it to exist, the substitute not only proposes to lend the money which you now ha.ve, but all that you shall hereafter raise, and places the same, ere yet it is raised,.in the very process of getting to you, in the hands of banks to be lent out. There is yet another part of the Constitution standing directly in the way of the proposed sub stitute, to wit : the latter part of the first clause of the eighth section of the first article: "But duties, imposts, and excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States." Now', is not the effect of the substitute entirely to destroy this provision ? Grant that there is a uniformity in the original levy and collection, is not the effect of uniformity entirely done away if the revenue is immediately distribut ed by way of loan, in unequal proportions, among the different States of the Union. Suppose, for in stance, ten gentlemen were to go to a boarding house in this city, and say to the landlord or land lady, as the case might be, "We all desire to have equal fare, and to be charged at the same rate." "Certainly," is the reply ; "you shall all have the same fare and be charged at the same rate," and the bargain is accordingly closed. It turns out, howev er, in the event, that the landlord has stipulated with one of the guests to lend him out of the ten dol lars agreed to be paid weekly, seven dollars ; to an other five ; to another three, and to another one, without interest, and this for the whole time they remain boarders at his .house ; that is to say, to make the same return weekly for which they would give their notes, which the landlord stipulates with them shall be treated by him as so much gold and silver. Will any one pretend the parties had been treated with the stipulated impartiality ? Clearly not, and so in a much more absolute sense is this stipulation of equality in the Constitution violated by the operation of the deposite system. Again it is declared in tha 5th clause of the 9th section of the 1st article that "no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or reven ue to the ports of one State over those of another." And can any one doubt that the revenue regula tions of the General Government hitherto acted upon, and those proposed to be adopted by the sub stitute of the Senator from Virginia has, and will have, the effect of giving decided advantages to the ports of one State over those of another5? Have they not and will they not, paralyze the commerce of the Southern States, and give more vigor to that of a favored few at the North ? To any one who does not see this, it is useless to address argument. Our whole system of Government is based upon principles of equality, and these principles have always been more or less violated in its administra tion. But the substitute proposes a violation even greater than has yet been practised. Even the U. btates, Bank might locate a branch in any State de siring it ; and under the deposite law of 1836, the nnZity rf lLhe Treasury was not restricted to llLhS Jk tl?e ?hoiee of nks, nor to any given S?K- -nk m anJr one State- we have, iLf,Pr0VU51?QS,of the "bsiitute, the system tf equality completely subverted, and the power of the large States magnified, and that of the small ones diminished. In the first place, the banks, are limited to twenty-five, so that, one State of the Union must of necessity be excluded from any participation in the reai- or imaginary benefits of this' arrangement- and only twenty-five banks out oi me nunareas in ine union are allowed to snare it This will be a pet bank system with a vengeance And what is worse, the selection of these banks is to be committed in part to Congress, where the large States, in one branch at least, have a most decided advantage. Truly is the principle ot e quality altogether overlooked in this measure. But there is another clause of the Constitution stand ing in the. vavof the adoption of the substitute (for it runs counter to a whole phalanx of constitu tional provisions,) and that is a portion of the 2d clause 2d section ot the 2d article : "he, the Fresi dent, shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the senate, shall appoint, ambassa dors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme oourt, and all other officers of the U States," &c. Now. waving the question raised by my colleague, whether corporations are competent to be chosen officers of the Government, fan d I do not say that the objection is not a valid one,) it seems to me evident, from this clause of the Con stitution, that whether the officer be an individua or corporation, he can only be appointed by the f resident, Dy and with the consent ot the senate. or by tne .President alone, or the heads of Depart ments, if they shall be vested by law -with that power. .'- And yet the substitute proposes that banks shall be selected as fiscal agents of the Government by Congress, contrary to the letter of the Consti tution, and its manifest policy. Whether receiving paper in payment of the pub lic aues, De a aireci violation ot tne ionsutuiion as insisted by the Senator from South. Carolina! Mr. Calhoun,"! or not, it ought, at any rate, to re ceive no sanction from Congress : because, in the nrst place, it not actually prohibited by the Consti feuVit 13 evident it would have been done had its framers foreseen" that act attempt would be made to establish it as the regular medium of receipt for the public dues. We hnd. whole masses ot the constitution directed by tnem against the paper system, and e well know that it was a thing o which bitter experience" had made them heartily sick; that they were, in the memorable language of a gentleman on the other side, hard money men. In the second place, no prudent person ought to re ceive what he cannot with propriety pay out ; and it was well urged by the benator from Massachu setts fMr. Webster! on another occasion, that the Government ought only to pay, or even offer to pay, its creditors in a sound, uniform medium, so that the actual amount paid to each creditor should be equal to the nominal amount due him. In this heartily concur; and therefore think the command mg the receipt by revenue officers in payment of public dues of what cannot be considered as such a medium, highly improper. Money is the only medium in which the law should authorize or com pel the recetpt of debts, and especially public debts and it is an abuse of terms to call bank notes money They want the main characteristic of money, and nave, by looseness of conversation as well as ot ideas assumed the name of that for which they only stood as a substitute. From England, from whom we have borrowed the paper system, we have also bor rowed this vice of expression, which confounds tmngs essentially dinerent. moe notes are no more money than the note of an individual is mo ney, it is ot the nature ot money, when paid to discharge altogether the nreviously existing debt, and to vest without more the property purchased in one person, and the money paid for it in another. But the payment of a bank note merely changes the debtor, and substitutes the bank as a debtor to th holder of its note, in lieu of him from whom he received it. It is still but what the lawyers call chose in action. - In ancient times, money consisted of cattle or other articles which had an intrinsic value, and the transactions were rather barters than sales, in the modern meaning of that term. In later limes, gold and silver were found to possess all the requisites of a common standard of value in a high er degree than any thing else. 1 hey combined in trinsic value in a small compass with indestructi bility and almost indefinite divisibility, and thev have been adopted, by the common consent of all mankind, as the only general money of the world When they are transferred, the debt before existing is extinguished, and no new one is created. They G . . are the arbiter and hmsher of all transactions. But it is insisted by the Senator from Kentucky Mr Clay that the Government makes money of what ever it receives as such. I agree that the Govern ment does, by affixing its stamp of approbation, cause to pass as money what is not so in truth. And does not this consideration of itself, so far from furnishing a reason why Government should fix its stamp upon bank notes, operate directly the other way 1 In declaring that to be money which is not money, Government gives currency to a falsehood, and unsettles tne sound foundations ot public opin ion ; and no man can see the consequences to which a falsehood may lead, which he has once labelled as truth. The notes of a bank are no more money than the notes of individuals : and the Government can, by its action, make one pass as money as well as the other. And why should they not? Why should favored associations be taken under the fos tering care of the Government, and individuals, whose worth and ability may be more, distinctly known, discarded from it ? Is this in keeping with the great principles of equality upon which our in stitutions are based? If assistance to the poor, in whose behalf the Senator from Massachusetts who last addressed you fMr. Davis spoke so pathetical ly, were a legitimate object ot the action of this Government, it would certainly be much better ac complished by its endorsing the notes of the poor and needy, but worthy and struggling, citizen, than those of these wealthy corporations. But the system proposed by the substitute is a radical change in the whole action of our Govern ment from that proposed by the Constitution. In the first place, it legislates into perpetual existence a currency unknown to tne constitution, and a gainst which many of its provisions are directed. In the next, it introduces into the texture ot the Go vernment a fourth estate, never designed by its fra mers to enter into it. It in effect declares that our ignorant forefathers knew nothing of the dire cor ruption which pervades the human heart, or had overlooked the only means of proyiding against it. That they did not see the beauties of that bank ma chinery by which the public treasure might be se cured against the fingers of the pilferer, and ne glected to provide it. And it is now proposed by their more sagacious sons to supply by legislation this dangerous omission. If all this is true, shall we suffer that sacred instrument to be thus inter polated without a regular process of amendment that the legislature shall thus alter what was fram ed for the express purpose of circumscribing its own action? Surely not. But it is not true that the framers of the Constitution were ignorant of this bank agency, but it seems had it distinctly be fore them, and deliberately repudiated it. But, notwithstanding all this, the Opposition calls the Independent Treasury a novelty an experi ment. ThatJs to say, that the only plan known for the first 5,000 years of the existence of the world, is a novelty, although it has been, with very few exceptions, continued ever since ; while that which was never heard of until about seven hun dred years ago, and did "not receive any thing like the form in which it is now urged until a little more than one hundred years since, is a perfect antiaui- ty, and stands protected by hoary experience. The first bank which we hear of in the history of the world was that of Venice, established in'l 157, A. D.; the next was that of Genoa, in 1345, near two hun dred years after : the next was that of Amsterdam, in 1609; and then that of Hamburg, in 1619. The famous Bank of England had no existence until 1694. and about twenty years afterwards was fol lowed by the Bank of France, to wit: in 1716. inese places nave ail been conspicuous upon the theatre of .the world, .but not least for their wars and robberies. Commerce has enriched them, but it lias been a commerce conducted in fraud and en forced in blood. I will not go back to Venice and Genoa, but take England, and the groans of op pressed India speak for her. - The rivers of blood which have deluged that unhappy land, cry out for. vengeance upon her lust of gold. Plunder by force or stratagem is the real sustenance of those nations, who subsist only on commerce." -.The first bank in France was a part of Mr. Law's famous bubble, for the payment of the national .debt, and a very similar origin is found for thai of England. .From their unlucky explosions, the alchemists learnt les sons by which they profited in future experiments. But no bank became the fiscal agent of the Govern ment, until the Bank of England became so in the reign of Queen Anne, whose expensive wars on the continent had involved the Government in pe cuniary difficulty, and -compelled her to apply to the bank for assistance. In consideration - of that as sistance, the bank was secured in a monopoly with 1 1 ! mi 1 1 1 a aoumea capital, i ne equivalent sne paiu was an advance to the Government of 400,000 in cash, the cancelling of exchequer bills to the amount of 1,775,027, and throwing into circulation 2,500, 000 more of the exchequer bills. - And thus the bank for relieving the " necessities of the Govern ment, had secured to it a larger privilege of plun dering the citizens of covertly taxing them to re imburse herself. Upon the same principle' it was that our U. S. Bank3 of 1791 and 1316 came into existence. Government necessities were great, and bonus, loans, and other accommodations to the Government obtained for the banks the authority to make these disguised exactions from the neonle. Yet gvnUGmen. -say-lhzt . banking is not profitable, and refer to the small dividends of4-he.U. States Bank. They leave out of the calculation "the- - mounts paid to Government for their monopoly, the losses by frauds and mismanagement up to 1819, and the contingent fund for promoting the spread of bank principles. These are the institutions which claim the merit of antiquity, and look down upon that as a novelty, which, beginning with the history of mankind, has existed in its native simplicity to this day. Again, it is argued that the collection and dis bursement of the revenue in gold and silver are al together impracticable, without creating great pub lic distress through the scarcity of those articles. And here 1 will frankly confess, that when 1 hrst began to consider this subject, I was apprehensive that the adoption of the Independent Treasury sys tem would materially affect the price of property, reducing it to a distressingly low value ; and that has been, in my view, the only unfavorable circum stance connected with it. But longer observation and deeper reflection has dissipated that fear, and I now feel confident that the depression in the value of property, produced by the present reaction, is far greater than that which would be more permanent ly produced by any probable check given to the pa per system by this or any other measure within the reach ot Congress, or, indeed, by the total suppres sion ot bank paper, i will call your attention to a report furnished by the Secretary of the T. reasury at the present session, showing the balances in the Treasury at the end of each year, by which it is, in my judgment, manifest that five millions of dollars are enough for the Treasury circulation; and with the reduction in the revenue, which 1 hone to see take place, three millions will be amply sufficient. Mr. Gallatin computed the precious metals in the world fin 1819 I think it was) at between four and five thousand millions ; and after all allowances each way, supposed the annual increase to be equal to about one per cent.; which, by this time, would bring it up to between five and six thousand mil lions. Of this about two thousand five hundred -v . millions exists in com. cut our calculations are not to be circumscribed within the two thousand five hundred millions, the whole amount of the five or six thousand millions belonging to the great fami ly of nations, for that purpose for which the God of nature seems especially to have provided them ; and whenever the coin is found deficient, the bullion ex isting in other forms will, by an irresistible law, come as offerings to the altar ot public convenience, whether it is found in the embellishments of mod ern life, or the curious vases dug from the ruins of antiquity. The circulating medium ot the world may be compared to a vast ocean, of which the pe culiar portion of each nation is connected with it, like a bay or arm of the sea. Each is affected by its tides ; receives of its fullness at its flood, and must Dour back into it at its ebb. From this ocean all that we would want for the nurnoses of our Trea would be but as a bucket-full from the waters of the Potomac. It is next urged against the Independent Trea sury that it is in tact a Government bamc. "it tnis were so, it were a grevous fault," and many of its present friends, could they be so persuaded, would at once abandon it. But assertion is not proof, and after all the ingenious efforts of the Opposition to make good thi3 charge, they have, as I think, sig nally failed. The most plausible ot all the untena ble arguments to which they have resorted to sup port thw charge is, that the bill authorizes a" trans fer. by draft, if necessary, of the funds of the Gov ernment from one part of the country to another ; and this they say constitutes a bank. If this be so, then almost every man in the country is not only a banker, but a bank. For who is there who may not. bv bill of exchange, transfer money which he may have in one part of the country where he does not want it. to another where 'he does. But this obiection ot a Government bank come3 with pe culiarly .ill grace from the Opposition ; for however we may beat around the subject, the sting of a Go- vernment bank lies at last in its power to turnisn a circulating medium to make loans and pay divi dends. These are the levers by which public o- pinion is to be moved, and all these the substitute in effect proposes to give to a system of institutions connected with the Government," while, whatever may be said to the contrary, the Independent 1 rea sury wants them all, and no human ingenuity can lav its finger on the clause of the bill in which ei ther of them lies. If gentlemen choose to suspect covert purposes not appearing on the face ot the bill, there is no reasoning wun suspicion, in mis res Dect it resembles confidence: a man confides, be cause he will confide; and he suspects, because he will suspect. . It is further objected to the Independent Treas- . . . . . n . nr ury, that it increases executive patronage, w e have heard a great deal of humbugs upon thi3 floor; but of all the humbugs which have ever come un der my observation,' this is the merest. Already, the offices holden at the will of the Executive ex ceed ten thousand, and our fears'are suddenly ap pealed to upon the addition of twenty. Public lib erty is perfectly safe with a corps of ten thousand office holders? but ten thousand and twenty threat en its immediate annihilation. Sir, I say again, as open and acknowledged patronage is a principle of r . . l i - i -. I have said betore, that, under our institutions weakness. rather tnan oi power io nun wno wields I it. I feel'it in my own humble sphere. My situa- tion here entitles my opinions to some little respect in the appointment of officers in my own State, & lam, of course, occasionally applied to on that ground by those who desire them. In the discharge of my legislative duties, my constituents and I un- derstand each other perfectly ; they know what course I am likely to take upon any great measure,, and there is no disappointment. " But in the exer cise of the little influence I possess in the distribu tion of offices it is different. For one whom I have it in my power to gratify, I am forced to disappoint ten : and 1 am more fortunate than 1 expect to be if those whom I cannot oblige do not impute my not doing so, some to ingratitude, some to a want of a due sense of their merits, some to a wish to accomplish objects of my own, and others to a want of that influence which a more able, man in my place would command.. In either view I have made a bad bargain, and have lost much more than I have gained. Such, in a much larger sphere, is the situation of the President. But that is not all; his appointments, when made,' do not always add strength to his administration So far as my expe rience goes, the mass of applicants for office are from the ranks of ; the Opposition ; and their feel ings of Opposition, though temporarily smothered, are seldom appeased, but are certain to show them selves on the first occasion of trial; and the instan ces are far more numerous of those who received office while professing attachment to the Adminis tration, afterwards becoming its opponents, than of opposititon being won over by appointment to at tachment and advocacy. But what is true of open and undisguised patronage, is not true of that se cret and complicated influence which may be exer- cised through the banks, whenever the objects of the Administration and of the banks become iden tified. Agents of this influence start up, like Rho- derick Dhu's men, from behind every bush, and their appeals can be addressed in the most subtle, and yet, in appearance, most innocent forms. Take a single instance. A member of this, or one of the State Legislatures, is debtor to a bank, and a measure of great importance is pending before the legislative body those most conversant in bank af fairs choose to suppose that it will in some way materially affect banking interests, and the general conversation upon the subject inculcates that be lief. A bank officer has occasion . to write to this member merely to inform him that on such a day his note will be due; but as he has his pen in hand, he adds: " The measure now under consideration in yovur.body, if it becomes a law, will, it is thought, create a necessity for the banks to curtail their is sues, and the debtors will, of course, be required to pay up their notes in full.7"-Jow, there is nothing wrong in all this; but what is the effect upon the recipient of the letter ? A perfectly natural one. His thoughts take a new direction, "it is true," he says to himself, "1 had intended to have voted for this measure, and supposed it a beneficial one but in that I may be mistaken ; and if it is to affect the banks as stated in this letter, the consequences to myself are appalling. 1 am not able to pay up this note without the sacrifice ol all that 1 possess My wife will be reduced to beggary, and the pro pects oi my utile ones iorever ougnieu. x ne Ha zard is too great: I cannot encounter it." So . i. i . i f -j m i i would reason, under these circumstances, a man who had not the integrity of Aristides, with the firmness of Socrates. Sir, we all feel this bank influence pervading the very atmosphere we breathe The filaments of its attraction insinuate themselves every where, into the most secret and retired pla ces : and every man feels himself drawn on this side, and upon that, by some subtle power of which he is scarcely conscious. I now proceed to the consideration of the subject as connected with commerce and political economy I am not induced to take this view from any belief of my own, that it is pertinent to the present inves tigation ; but our friends on the other side have ob truded it upon us, and by pressing it themselves in debate, have made it necessary for us to meet them upon tnat ground. l insisi, as i uiu ai me exira session, that the President was right in his opinion i , X " . T 1 " 1 . 1 . of the obbgations of this Government, in relation to the currency. 1 deny that the Government is bound to furnish or regulate any other currency than that of gold and silver, nay, I deny its right to do so. Sir. the word currency is not in the whole Constitution, although a late fellow-traveller of high respectability, who had been recently read ing the speech ot the senator irom massacnusetts fMr. Webster,! delivered at the last session ol Congress, insisted that it was. I ventured modest ly to put in my dissent to this opinion of my fellow traveller, but to no enect ; ana as me argument . . - grew warmer, he finally brought the weighty au thority of the Senator from Massachusetts to bear unon me. and declared tnat mat genueman was un - i ..i . . l rivalled in his knowledge of constitutional law, and that any man who would read his speech must be satisfied that it was there. I was forced to admit, as I now do, that any man who was not himself' acquainted with the Constitution, and would read the speech ot the Benator, would come to tne con clusion that the word currency was in the Consti tution : and yet I admit that the honorable Sena tor from Massachusetts did not say that the word currency was there. He derives the authority of Con?rtrs3 over the currency, and the obligation to regulate it, from the third clause of the eighth sec tion of the first article, which declares that Congress shall have power "to regulate commerce wun ror eign nations and among the several States," &c, and this, lie savs. coupled with the seventeenth clause of the same section and article, gives to Con gress the power to create and regulate the means of commerce. - I did understand the Senator, at the last session, to insist that the words regulate and create often meant the same thing ; and, if my me mory serves me, he offered some examples to prove it. But, sir, it the meanings oi. worus are to De thus confounded, it seems to me that language loses all its utility, and words cease to be as they were designed the vehicles of ideas. "God created the heavens and the earth," and his right to regulate them, grows out of his creative power. But yet the two risrhts or Dowers are altogether distinct. One of them he has transferred, to some extent, to man, and given him "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over every living thing that creeoeth upon the eartn." jdui nis ere ative novver is uncommunicated, and perhaps in communicable. But -relieving the Senator from any verbal criticisms, and even granting; him his memises. namely, that Congfess, under the Con stitution, has Dower to regulate commerce, and un der the seventeenth clause of the eighth section of the first article, to furnish such medium ot com- r- . .- u: merce as may be necessary ior us reguiauou, conclusion will not follow ; for the necessity does nnt exist, urion which his superstructure rests ; and, of course, that superstructure-must fall to the ground. The best medium on eartn ior commerce,is alrea dy provided and there is no necessity for another. But if this matter could be reduced toa mere ques tion of commercial expediency, I deny that Con- . . j- r.: : u .i l gress ouht to connect ner nscai auairs wim mc u- cal banks. Who applies the scourge to the nying courser ? And such would be the enect ot govern ment continuing the stimulus of her deposites, and receipt of bank paper, with the local institutions. But I know it will be said she is invited to apply the rein, and not the scourge. Sir, this is a ruin ... r.,iio.tr - Tt a in f-irt an invitation to Dlace both the scourge and the rein in irresponsible hands, and with the power to use them with the wildest discretion, or, rather, .without any discretion at all. A .1 n - n.,lrl Trviro tn the whrtlp cnimtrv. The Independent Treas'y system proposes nothing n-a .i . M.lMi tho cfimiiliiQ Drhih the C xf- lilulv- man iu wnuuio - - Ternment has heretofore given to a system she has neither the right nor the power to control, ana leave it to the action of those laws to which " .PrPrf" ly subject; laws founded on the eternal pnncipies of truth and nature, and by which it will certauuy, in the end, be properly guided. But. the, soundest principles of Government are at war with any con neetion'with the paper system. Fluctuation is one of the most prominent characteristics of that sys tem ; in proof of which, if any is required, I will read an extract from the last April number of the Edinburgh Review, pages 33 and 34 : "There, might, indeed, and most probably would be, commercial revulsions, and a fall of iheexchange, even though the currency were wholly metallic, or fluctua ted exactly as a metallic currency would d; but there is not the slightest reason for supposingihai tkey would be either half so frequent or severe, a under the exist ing system. A mixed currency; or a currency of coin and paper, supplied like ihai of Eng'anil, is exposed to fluctuations in its amount, ai.d capacity of lran-acling business, ten times greater than any that could attach to a purely metallic currency', or to a mixed currency, fluctuating according to the demand lor bullion. It the currency consisted wholly of gold, or if no addition al supplies of paper could be obtained except upon the deposit of an equivalent amount of gold, no general rise of prices could take place, except when there was an influx of the precious metals ; and these; as every one knows, cannot be accumulated in any one coun try to a much more considerable degree than in others. But when individuals or associations are allowed to issue notes, or paper fitted to serve all the purposes of money, not upon a deposite of bullion, but merely upon their receiving a promise to r-pay it with interest at some future period, a dew and most powerful element of variation is brought into the field." Mr. Locke, one of the most profound writers in the English language, has said: "It is the interest of every country that the standard of its money, once settled, should inviolably and immutably be kept to perpetuity ; for whenever that is altered, from what pretence soever, the public will lose by it. Men, in their bargains, contract not for deno minations or sounds, but for intrinsic value." I know that Mr. Locke is here speaking of an alter ation by the arbitrary action of the Government. But the consequences of alteration will follow as certainly, by whatever power it may be brought about. But" if the Government adopts the paper system, the principle of fluctuation will be incorpo rated in the money of the country by the Govern ment itself, and the alteration of its standard will be the act of the. Government. One of the most serious evils of this fluctuation is the sudden change it produces in the condition of men. The paper system, in addition to its tendency to fluctuation, increases this latter evil also by the encouragement it gives to speculation, and by the joint operation of these two causes men are continually rising sud denly from poverty to wealth, and sinking from wealth to poverty. Mutability i3 one of the worst features in human destiny, and is always reckoned among the chief ills of life. - Men become accus tomed to any state or Condition, and fitted to avail themselves of its enjoynents, whatever they may be, and to bear the ills attendant upon it. A grad ual improvement of a mem's condition is healthful to both the soul and body,and a gradual deteriora tion may be borne with philosophical composure, and without any very perceptfj-le loss of comfort. But any sudden revulsion either way is attended always with many painful incidents. Eveh where the change, humanly-speaking, ii for the better, it is seldom attended with real happiness. The heir of poverty, who is suddenly advanced in fortune, has rarely any of those qualificationfr-wErcTi- Bi PJjn for its enjoyment. He is removed from the circus and associations which were wont to engage Ipis affections, and thrown into others with which This heart knows no sympathy. Bat who can paint the misery of him who, reared to better hopes, has lived under sunny skies and amid bright prospects, land suddenly finds himself overwhelmed with pecunia ry ruin ? Time will not allow us to follow out this fruitful and affecting theme. But another.great evil of the paper systei a is. that it causes the producers of the country to sell at specie prices, and buy at paper prices, or in oth er words to buy at prices, regulated by an inflated currency, and sell at those which are regulated by a stable currency. Gentlemen affect no t to see the force of this argument, and ask wt eth er the planters do sell their produce in one coQiitry, and buy their articles of consumption in another I I answer yes. The price of every article produced in this country, and which usually goes to a for eign market, is here regulated by the price it 'the foreign market. The paper currency of a cou titry doe3 not form a portion of that great ocean to w rich 1 had reference in a former part of my remarks ; but is, as it were, an isolated lake which ha 3 no outlet by which it may mingle itself with those vast waters. You may pour into it until it will over flow and inundate the country in which it is itu ate, and thus involve it in ruin; but it leaves the great ocean without unaffected by its swellJ It raises prices at home but affects them not in cither markets. However abundant, therefore, money so called may be at home, the exporter can afford to give the farmer no more than the price in- the I for eign market will warrant, leaving him his reasona ble expenses and profit besides. But it is ntt so with the articles he imports; when he gets them here they at once teel the influence of the swollen circulation, and bring correspondent prices, add at those prices the consumer must purchase. But it will be said that England, the principal country with whom we trade, is a paper country, and there fore we lose nothing by our paper system in our in tercourse with her. bir, a man loses all by any cirpumstance, that, but lor that circumstance; he would have made. Although England is a naper country, yet, it we were exclusively a metallic coun mm- try, we should make more by our intercourse (with her. An. I why should we, because she chooses to maim herself by her paper system, follow her ex ample? The whole business of life is a struggle between nations and individuals for their respec tive portions ot the goods ot fortune ; & why should any wise man, who is embarking in any strife dis- ibfe himself because his adversary. has had th fol- y to do so. 1 am certain, sir, that to do justice to this argument it should be more elaborate, put 1 must leave it with the few hints I have throw out, which I trust will be understood by any intelligent mind. And yet-the paper system is -applauded to the skies, as tne wing upon winch H-ugland ha3 soared to her present prosperous height. Sir, Eng- and has mriven in spite ot ner paper systemj and m 1 . f I not by reason of it ; and the same answer applies to the panegyrics wnicn- nas oeen poured lorth upon the wonders attributed to the banks in this country; They have, it is said, caused the wilderness tolblos- sorn, bunt up towns in the. desert, opened our inas, i -i - i constructed our rail roads, and caused the steam- moved palaces to float upon our waters. If this were so, they would "indeed deserve our gratitude and praise; but I have thought, and still. think! that we owe all these things to the enterprise anu in dustry of-our citizens, and the abundant resources with which it has pleased heaven to bless our oun- m - - . 1 1 L.m. try. Through them all these wonaers nave eeu accomplished, and the bank3 supported besides. -x ii . ,! . .!. oucn nas been the vigor oi ine panenrs conf tion, that he has supplied nutriment to this vai wen, and borne its enormous growth, and furbish ed support, at the same time, to all the functions of i:r 1 r, i i : - - - - - i . "c, ana nis own namtiu mucasr. y Andthi bring3 me to the consideration ot anomer evil of the paper system, and that is, its tendency to call men off from the most productive enfploy- ments to those which are less so, or not so at all ; drawing them off from the cultivation of the soil to . rt? l t become speculators, name oincers, snop-xeepers, and livers upon their wits. All values are created bv the soontaneou3 production of the earth, by human labor- by animal procreation, or by soe or all-of these united. T"e spontaneous production of the earth is, of course, the most profitable : to turn who can avail himself ot it of any other ; and the production of the earth,. corrhined with human labor, furnishes at last the basis of all wealth. Hu man labor may,: after the production by the eart is completed, put into more advantageous form- and in more advantageous places, .what -has bee n produced j but to the earth we must go back for the origin of all wealth. Wealth to a -nation is . happiness ; that is. to say, the - mow ., aggregate wealth a nation possesses, provided it be sufficient ly distributed, the more people does it place iaposr session of the means of procuring the essentials of happiness. The larger portion of a nation's "popu lation engaged in the production of values, and the more advantageously' engaged, the better for tfcat nation. Labor applied to bringing into r.ction the productive powers of the earth, is, as a general rule, the most advantageous mode of producing values. Everything, therefore, which has a ten dency to divert any considerable portion of, a nation from agricultural pursuits, by turning them to spe culation, professions, merchandise, or.even to ma nufactures, where that nation possesses a suitable field for agricultural pursuits, has, as a general rale, the effect of diminishing the wealth of that nation. But I can pursue this topic no further. I conclude that Congress has not the right, and if it had, it would not be expedient for it to undertake the crea tion and regulation of a common, paper medium through banks. f But if it possessed such right, and such obligation rested upon . it, the substitute pro posed by the Senator from. Virginia provides no such medium, the currency it would fo3ter would be, after all, but local in its character, and with all the disadvantages, would possess 'few of the ad vantages of a common paper medium. . ' Having finished what I had to say upon other branches of this subject, I now propose to treat it, in the last place, as a mere political question. This, after all, is by far the most interesting and impor- j tant light in which it presents itself. Two great political parties have been striving for mastery in this nation ever since its existence.began, and pro bably will continue to stride as long as its present institutions remain. Indeed, the strife may be said to have bugun before the nation had an existence, and to have been waged in giving form and cha racter to that existence. The party to which I be long holds, and ever has held, the capacity of man for self-government ; that Providence has bestowed on each individual certain natural gifts and advan tages, which he has a right to use without moles tation or restraint, so long as he forbears , to. U3e them in infringing upon similar rights in others. But that owing to a corrupt propensity in our race ' to infringe the rights of others, Government is ne cessary, and to support Government taxation is ne cessary ; but that no more government should be exercised than is required fer the purpose for which alone it was instituted, and no more taxation resort ed to than is necessary for its support, and that it is a gross abuse of Government to take from one man any of his natural or providential rights and advantages, and bestow them on another. That Government is at best but a necessary eviL or, in the beautiful language of Thomas Paluet "Govern ment, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; and the palaces of kings were ' founded upon the ruins of the bowers , ot Paradise." - -That this ne cessary evil was designed for the benefit of the tpa . ny, and hot of the few, and thaf the greatest good of the "greatest number should be the object as w:ll of the philanthropist as of the honest and enlighten ed politician. That every new society-of men has a right to choose its own form of Government, - and to change it afterwards, with the concurrence of a " majority of the parties to the original compactr That the best form of Government, upon the whole,. is that under which we at present live, reduced as it was by its wise founders to a solemn written compact, which no man has a right to change or modify peaceably and insidiously by construction, or openly and violently, without incurring great po litical guilt and just condemnation. We believe in the existence of virtue and patriotism, and hold them to be the only proper bases of political action ,'1 ana mat every tmng tenamg io piace political ac tion upon any other basis, is dangerous to liberty and subversive of our institutions. History informs us that much the opposite of all this was held by the other party ; that the present Constitution waj very far from being such a3 they would have had it : that it was too Democratic in its nature. and- distributed power too equally among all classes of the people, the bulk ot whom they believed unfit either to govern themselves, or to participate in the government of others. Bat they agreed to accept it upon the whole, believing that, by construction, many deficiencies might be supplied, and that vi gor in which it was eminently wanting might be imparted. We learn, from high authority, that, the Constitution was scarcely put in operation, be fore the principle of construction was applied, and that those who were most active in its application avowedly held the doctrine that a -monarchy was the best Government on eartb, and, with Sir Ro bert Walpole, that a man's patriotism was to be sought for in his pocket. -.- ' "But Hamilton was not only a "monarchist, but for a monarchy founded on corruption. -In proof of this, I will-relate an anecdote, for the truth, of which I attest the God who made me. Before the.President set out on his. Southern tour, in Apiil, 17yi. he addressed a (otter of the fourth of that month, lrom Mount Vernon to the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and. War, desir ing, that if any serious and important cases should arise during his absence, tney would consult and act upon tbera. And he requested that the Vice President . should also be consulted. This was the only occasion on which that officer was ever requested to take Dart n a cabinet queston. Some occasion for consultation . arising, 1 invited those gentlemen to dine with rne, in order to confer on the subject. After "the cloth was re moved,' and our question agreed and dimissed, con versation began on other matters, and by some circum stance was led to the British Constitution, on which Mr. " Adams observed "purge that Constitution of its cor ruption, and give to its popular branch equality of re-; presentation,, and it would be the most perfect const it u-.: tion ever devised by the wit of man." Hamilton paus ed, and said, "purge it of its corruption, and give to Us popular-branch equality of representation, and it would brcome an Impracticable Govern meni: as it stands at present, with all Us supposed delects, it is the raosV, perfect Government "which ever existed. Jejferson's. Memoirs, page 450. . . ,' . The leader of this party was a splendid man. whose talents I admire, and the integrity of whose purposes, l do not mean to question; but his no-j tions on government were, I believe, as erroneous asVthose of Tycho Brachein philosophy. The first fruits or these principles were the lunding system and United States Bank, with respecr to which Mr. Pitt, looking to their. consequences with the eagle eye of a profound statesman, declared, that C ?1 A " 1 1 , - 1 . ' . i me Americans , emoarKeu in tnem, he would give but ntue tor their liberties. The nature and operation of these measures will bejbund explain-, ed in Mr. Jefferson's Work3, vpL 4, pp. -446 419. - "Hamilton's financial system had then nassed. it bad two objects; first, as a puzzle to exclude popular understanding and inquiry; andsecond, as a machine for the corruption of the legislature : for he avowed the opinion that man could be governed by one of two mo-' lives oniy, torce or interest : force, he observed in this country was out of the question, and the interest there fore of the members miut be laid hold of. to keen ii.! egisla'ure in unison with -the Executive. ;And with grief and shame it must be acknowledged that his ma-- chine was not witbooteffect ; that even in this the binh of our Government,' sortie .members were found sordid enough to bend their jluty to their interests, and loolc afier personal rather than public ecod " Jeffrxn' Memoirs, page 446, roZ."4th. " . .. . "I know very ell. and so must be understood that nothing like ai raaiority in Congress had yielded W this" corruption. Far from' it. But a division not very i I Hi fi II SI 1i 41 i
The Weekly Standard (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
April 25, 1838, edition 1
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