The subject was therefore again fully before the country, and the Committee felt bound to at least appear to act in behalf of a cause upon which so much stress had been laid during the pendency of the appeal to public opinion. Bills were accordingly brought in at different times during the session, 1st, to regulate the mileage of members of Congress; 2d, the allowance for forage to army officers; 3d, to prevent improper allowances to public agents in settling their accounts; 4th, to abolish the board of Navy Commissioners; 5th, to prohibit the use of secret service money in time of peace; 6th, to abolish the office of Major General in the army; 7th, brevet rank both in the army and marine corps; 8th, to abolish the practice of annually examining the land officers; 9th, to regulate the pay of military and naval officers: 10th, to secure the accountability of public agents in foreign countries.

Resolutions were also brought in by the Committee to abolish the office of Draughtsman of the house; to diminish the expenses of public printing, and also in favor of specific appropriations; but they were permitted to remain undisturbed except the resolution relating to the Draughtsman, which after long and frequent debates was carried, 95 affirmative, 86 negative.

A similar fate attended the bills reported to curtail the expenses of the Government, with the xception of that abolishing

books of the land officers once a year and ascertaining the balance in the hands of the receivers. This bill was passed into a law, but the others, which, aimed more directly at retrenching expenses, that were stigmatized as indications of the corrupt administration of affairs, were not deemed of sufficient importance to warrant a vigorous effort to carry them.

That establishing an uniform mode of computing the mileage of members of Congress indeed received the sanction of the House of Representatives, but was laid on the table in the Senate upon motion of Mr Bibb, and remained there until the termination of the session. Most of the other bills remained undisturbed in the House, and the session closed without further notice of a subject, which had proved the cause of so much agitation and invective during the last administration.

Nothing was retrenched and the attempts which were made by some of the accounting officers of the Treasury to introduce a new system into that department, caused so much confusion and inconvenience, that Congress was compelled by resolution or by law to direct the continuance of the former allowances.

The cause of reform fared no better in the Senate, where a select Committee was appointed to take this and other subjects of a political character into consider

ation.

Bills were reported by the chairman (Mr Benton) to carry, into effect the principles of reform, which had been so highly praised

viz. to regulate the publication of the laws and public advertisements; to displace defaulters; to regulate the appointment of postmasters, cadets and midshipmen, and to prevent military and naval officers from being dismissed at the pleasure of the President.

The period however had passed when these bills were in the opinion of the former, indispensably necessary; tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis, had now become the motto of the dominant party, and the work of retrenchment and reform found as little favor in the Senate as in the other branch of the Legislature.

The amendments to the Constitution were deemed equally unimportant and met with like neglect. The message of the President recommended them to the attention of Congress, and the Committee in the Senate pursuant to the recommendation, reported a resolution to amend the Constitution by altering the mode of electing the President and Vice President. Nothing however was done to give effect to the recommendation, and the amendment of the Constitution slept side by side with the reform in the administration of the Government.

These subjects of excitement had subverted the purposes for which they were intended, and the objects of the agitators being answered in the triumph of their party, the instruments by which they had accomplished their ends, were laid aside as no longer necessary.

Another topic introduced into the message, met with a still worse

The

reception in Congress. President had thought it incumbent on him to express a strong opinion against the propriety of renewing the charter of the bank of the United States, which expires in 1836. The bank had not applied for a renewal of its charter, but as the attention of Congress had been thus distinctly directed to this institution, it was referred to the Committees on finance in the several Houses of Congress for examination.

The subject was fully considered by these Committees, and on the 13th of April, 1830, Mr McDuffie, the chairman of the Committee of ways and means in the House, made a report diametrically opposite to the recommendation of the President.

Respecting the first proposition contained in the message, that Congress had not the constitutional power to incorporate a bank, the committee deemed that question no longer open for discussion. They however cited in its behalf, not only the decisions of the judiciary and the opinions of all the leading statesmen of every party, but the official sanction of every President, including Mr Jefferson, under whose administration the old bank was authorized to establish a Branch at New Orleans.

The first bank of the United States was incorporated about two years after the formation of the Government, when most of the framers of the Constitution were either in Congress or in the Cabinet. The act incorporating it was passed by large majorities and received the sanction of General

Washington. This, bank continued its operations for twenty years, during which time public and private credit were advanced to an elevated condition, and the finances of the country placed upon a solid foundation.

Mr Jefferson came into power after a violent political conflict, and the bank was in popular opinion associated with those measures, which had rendered the federal party unpopular.

As a party, therefore, those administering the Government were opposed to the renewal of its charter, and on the proposition to renew it, the question was negatived by the casting vote of the President of the Senate and by a majority of a single vote in the House of Representatives.

Within less than three years after the expiration of the charter, the circulating medium became disordered, the public finances deranged, and the public credit impaired. Every member of the Cabinet was convinced by experience of the necessity of a national bank, and the measure was recommended to Congress by the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr Dallas). Congress accordingly took the subject into consideration, and finally passed by large majorities, the act incorporating the present bank.

This history of the bank furnished a strong argument in favor of its constitutionality, and in addition to this, there was a decision of the Supreme Court directly to the same point. The committee then went into an examination of the constitutionality

of the bank as shown from the Constitution itself, and came to the conclusion, that Congress was empowered to institute a bank not only as one of the necessary and proper means' of executing the powers vested in it by the Constitution, but also as an indispensable means in regulating the national currency.

They also came to a different opinion from that contained in the message respecting the expediency of the measure. At the time when the bank was established, the currency of the Union was disordered to such an extent that in some places it was depreciated 25 per cent more than in others.

The circulating medium of the United States had been increased by the excessive issues of the banks to $110,000,000; and the effects of this depreciated currency were not only manifested in all the business transactions of the community, but had been productive of irretrievable ruin to thousands of innocent individuals.

Shortly after the establishment of the bank, the other banks were compelled to resume specie payments and within three years from the date of its charter, the circulating medium of the country was reduced to $45,000,000, and the nation furnished with a sound currency, more uniform in its value than specie itself, and of absolute uniform value for all the purposes of paying the public contributions and disbursing the public revenue.

As the annual collections of the government amount to $23,000,

000, or nearly one half of the whole circulating medium of the country, the bills of the bank are thus rendered of nearly uniform value for all purposes, aud more so than the circulating medium of any country of equal extent in the world.

They therefore concluded, that the bank had fulfilled the ends for which it was chartered, and that if the question were now on the renewal of its charter, that expediency and a regard for the public interest would dictate its renewal.

Those in whose hands the institution was now placed had managed it with discretion and ability, and had scrupulously avoided all interference with politics. The stockholders had generally purchased in at advanced prices, and a large portion of them were small capitalists or trustees of widows and ophans, and it was believed that as advantageous terms could be obtained by the government for a renewal from the present bank as from any new institution with a greater certainty of their being fulfilled. The Committee then proceeded to examine the proposition of the President to establish a national bank, founded upon the credit of the Government and its revenues.' Without branches they thought it would fail to furnish a currency, that would be available to the Union at large and would in effect be merely a district bank, but whether with or without branches it would be objectionable; inasmuch as it would vest in its direction the power to pledge the whole credit and resources of the

United States, and would take away all limit to excessive issues. With branches, it would be still more objectionable, as it vested the Federal Government with a patronage of most extensive influene and embracing the control of all the bank accommodations to the standing amount of $50,000,000. Such a control would introduce more corruption in the Government, than all the patronage now belonging to it. It was a desperate financial experiment, without parallel in the history of the world. The Committee also doubted the power of Congress to vest the power of loaning the public funds in another body; but, if it were clear, the objections to the scheme were so obvious and conclusive, that they unhesitatingly condemned it as pregnant with the most portentous mischiefs and calculated to introduce the most pernicious influence into the public councils.

The report from the Committee on finance in the Senate, concurred with that of the House in its conclusions, and was equally decisive in its condemnation of the sentiments of the President.

The friends of the administration formed a majority in both Committees, and the marked difference in the opinions entertained by them from that expressed in the message, afforded a striking proof of the want of harmony between the Cabinet and the party which had brought it into power.

The effect produced in the public mind by the message was entirely done away, and the stock of the bank, which had fallen

upon the delivery of the message from 126 to 120, rose after the publication of these reports to 127 and finally attained the price of $130 per share.

On another topic of general importance, the recommendation of the President met with more favor. The Tariff of 1828, became a law during the excitement of a contested election, and in adjusting its details, more regard had been paid to the political effect of the law than to the permanent interests of the country, or to the rules of political economy. Indeed some provisions had been introduced into the bill by its enemies, with the express view of rendering it obnoxious, and the very end of the law, that of encouraging the woollen interest, was hazarded, and at all events rendered more difficult of attainment by the almost prohibitory duty imposed on the coarse wool of South America.

In his annual message the President had invited the attention of Congress to the subject, and stated, that the general rule to be observed in imposing duties upon articles of foreign production was that which would place our own in fair competition with those of other countries, except those articles which are of primary necessity in time of war. In laying down this rule for the modification of the tariff, an implied dissent, except as to articles required in time of war, was given to the principle of protection, upon which the tariff of 1828, was founded; nor was any reservation made in favor of the princi

ple of retaliation, a principle which, in the opinion of many, was deemed to have entered more largely into the motive to the tariff of 1828, than any desire to protectthe American manufacturer from foreign competition.

In modifying the tariff, the attention of Congress was particularly invited to the agricultural interest, as superior in importance to all other interests, which were deserving of encouragement only so far as they contribute to increase the value of agicultural productions; and it was also advised to unite in diminishing all burdens obnoxious to any particular section of the Union.

This recommendation was too oracular to be relied on as indicative of the real opinions of the President on this disputed ques-. tion.

The exceptions in favor of articles required in time of war might be indefinitely extended, so as to comprehend more than even the advocates of an ultra tariff demanded.

A nation requires in war all and even more than it consumes in peace, and even in an army, woollen, cotton, linen and iron manufactures and a variety of other protected articles, are of prime necessity. Unless the exception be confined to fire arms, powder and ball, it is too indefinite to mean anything, and with that construction, the recommendation is hostile to the tariff policy.

It was probably so understood, and with the view of affecting a modification of the revenue system, several bills were introduced