(JANUARY, 1834. the bank in getting up excitements, and sending memorials to Congress? Mr. B. read again:

made by the board of directors, nor even by a committee appointed by the board, but by the president. Yes, sir, this enormous pressure, which was to bear upon the whole community, was the work of one single individual. It ap- injustice arising from this unlimited and irrespon "Another instance was lately exhibited of the pears that the removal of the deposits being sup-sible power of the committee on exchange. The posed to be probable, the bank began to take steps to meet it, as early as May or June, by curtailing its business.

policy adopted by the board has caused curtailments in the loans to the community to a great extent. These ought at least to be general in their The Government directors give us an account, operation. Yet on a loan for a very large sum, in a narrative of several pages, of the steps secured on stock, being offered for renewal on the taken to get at the reduction to be made. He 8th of November, all reduction was refused, on the read, first, an order of the board, in May, direct- ground that it had been originally made by the ing a committee to report a plan of curtailment; committee on exchange, some years before, for an and he remarked, so far, so good. That resoindefinite period, and that the faith of the bank lution he held to be a wise one, but that was by was, therefore, pledged for its continuance. These the board, and was legal. He read the resolu- resolutions, passed three years since, at a time tion of the 13th of August, and the whole his-thorized the committee on exchange to loan large when there was great abundance of money, autory of the curtailment, from the report of the Government directors. *

sums on approved collateral securities.' Assuming, by virtue of these, a power which we believe the [Here Mr. B. read extracts from the report to board never intended to confer, they have thus entered, it seems, into contracts which will extend to show that the moneyed powers of the bank, confided the termination of the charter, if not beyond it. by the charter to a Board of Directors, never to be These contracts, too, so far as we can learn, were less than one-half of the whole number, had been not reduced to writing; in fact, the notes them. delegated to an exchange committee, of which the selves were drawn at the usual short periods. It is now at least apparent that these proceedings were president of the bank was ex-officio one, and that at variance with the true policy of the institution, he did the business of the committee himself, and that they operated unequally on the commumaking great curtailments on the business community, whose interests ought to be impartially connity to create distress, and enormous loans to friends and favorites-$100,000 to one individual, but there were circumstances which would The name of this individual was not given; and $1,100,000 continued to another for two enable him (Mr. B.) to identify him. The comyears and remarked upon them to show the wan-mittee appointed two years ago, to investigate ton, wicked, and corrupt design of the curtailment and pressure which the bank was making.]

Although the board had the same day refused the paper of good men, merchants in the city, on the 12th day of August, when the curtailment was in full operation, the exchange committee, without the authority of the board, discounted one hundred thousand dollars to an individual, and refused the business paper of mercantile men, though well endorsed. He held that it was an improper partiality, at the very moment when the screws were turning on the merchants of Philadelphia, to make such a loan to an individual. Who was that individual? He figures at the head of a memorial praying for the restoration of the deposits. He was one of those who were busy in getting up public meetings and fac-simile memorials in favor of the restoration of the deposits, which were to be repeated, in showers, from every part of the country, like the memorials which, two years ago, we had in favor of the renewal of the charter. Could any thing be a more remarkable evidence of favoritism and partiality, than this screwing of one part of the community with one hand, and, with the other, pouring out favors upon those who were to aid

sulted."

the affairs of the bank, reported that a loan of eleven hundred thousand dollars was made at one time to a broker, who was a relative of the president of the bank; a loan, too, for an indefinite term of years, and at five per cent. interest. This, sir, was the loan on which no reduction was to be made; a loan standing at five per cent., when the merchants were driven to the brokers for money at exorbitant premiums to maintain their credit. There was an entire class of debtors to the bank, who were not subjected at all to the curtailment; but they were politicians and friends, and men who were busy in getting up meetings, for the purpose of producing that instantaneous action which was to restore the deposits to the bank, without any examination into the truth of the charges made against it.

that I have now made out the case of illegality, I trust, Mr. President, (continued Mr. B.,) partiality, favoritism, and violation of the charter, upon the testimony of a document which would stand before us, and before the American people, as true, until it should be disproved. He would not go further into the instances of favoritism: they were abundant, but time forbade the detail.

He wished now to say a word of the meetings everywhere getting up to influence Con* Messrs. Henry D. Gilpin, John D. Sullivan, Peter Wa-gress on the subject of the deposits-to coerce ger and Hugh McEldery.

their "instantaneous restoration." He had ob

JANUARY, 1834.]

Removal of the Deposits.

[SENATE.

served that merchants were often engaged in all, they knew nothing of the secret order, or conthese meetings. Allow me to say, sir, that nivance, from the bank to its principal branches my historical reading, and my professional stud- to refuse to receive the notes of their disies, have led me to entertain an exalted opinion, tant sister branches; and that the transfer drafts, and high respect for merchants as a body. He against which so much denunciation was directneed not go back to the middle ages, when mer-ed, were the sole cause of compelling the bank chants were the founders of States, and raised to honor its own branch paper, and were put the free cities of Italy to a level with kingdoms into the hands of the deposit banks for the sole and empires. He would refer to the merchants purpose of being used, upon condition that the of England and America, who had a potential institution should refuse its branch paper, or voice with statesmen in all matters of finance wantonly oppress the community by unnecessary and commerce. The opinions of such men, curtailments. Men acting in ignorance of all whenever expressed, would command from him these things, said Mr. B., must not be astonished respect and deference; but to maintain their if those who do know them should attach but right to that respect and deference, they must little weight to their elaborate resolutions. express the opinions of merchants and not of political partisans. Their meetings must be those of merchants, in which they speak and act for themselves, and not the meetings of lawyers and politicians, in which the merchants made no figure. In such meetings the voice coming from merchants was lost; it is their own fault, for merging their own high character in that of faction. The heat and passion of a political meeting was not their theatre, when they wished to enlighten the councils of the nation in matters of finance and commerce; and they must not think it amiss if they shared the fate of their company, and saw their opinions no better treated than those of lawyers and partisan politicians. Mr. B. then descanted, with some keenness, upon the fac-simile meetings which were getting up all over the United States, and adopting resolutions bearing the impress of the same mint to coerce Congress into "immediate action." He treated the motives of such meetings with considerable levity; made some cuts at lawyers and politicians, who could decide all the points connected with the immense question of removing and restoring the public deposits, without evidence, without facts, without hearing but a small piece of one side of the question, and then put forth their resolves to govern the opinion of the country. He said he should not pay much regard to such sudden verdicts, although they might be communicated by a procession of gownmen who should make a circuit round the city, like the soldiers of Joshua round the walls of Jericho, and deliver their resolves in a blast of rams' horns loud enough to blow down the walls of the Capitol.

The pressure in the money market, Mr. B. said, was a prevailing topic in all these resolutions and memorials sent to Congress; but the framers of those resolutions had no access to the great facts which showed the conduct of the bank in creating that pressure. They knew nothing of the order of restriction upon the western branches; the concerted accumulation of bills of exchange in the Atlantic cities; the extension of new loans to old favorites; the refusal to curtail friends, relations, and politicians; the immense amount of specie-five millions more than the president of the bank deemed a sufficiency two years ago; and above

A great issue, said Mr. B., is made up, and between great parties, and greatly affecting the property and liberty of the American people. It is an issue of fact. It is whether the Bank of the United States has unnecessarily curtailed its debts, and oppressed the community, and used its immense power over the money market to promote its own objects at the present time. The issue itself is a great one; the parties to it are eminent; they are the Government directors of the bank, who affirm it; the Secretary of the Treasury, who assigns it in his report on the removal of the deposits; and the President of the United States, who solemnly communicates the fact in his annual Message; these are the parties on one side: on the other stand the majority of the directors of the bank, denying the whole. The Senate has assumed to try this great issue; and how will they try it? By entering the arena, for and against the bank? By pleading like lawyers, and testifying as witnesses, and deciding as judges? Will they become compurgators for the bank? Will they enter the lists as champions, and that in a case in which the laws of chivalry do not admit of a champion? for the bank is neither a woman nor a priest. Will they convert the Senate into a bear garden, give and take contradictions, have a dog fight for the entertainment of the galleries, and acquit the bank by dint of numbers, without examination, and without trial?

Mr. B. held it to be impossible that the Senate of the United States could go on in this way, but that they were bound to proceed in the most solemn manner known to the history of parliamentary proceedings, namely, an examination of the president of the bank, and all other material witnesses, at the bar of the Senate. This, he said, was the course followed in England in similar conjunctures. It was done in the famous case of the South Sea directors; it was the proper course in all great national emergencies. It was the only way to obtain a PUBLIC TRIAL, such as the genius of our constitution delights in. Committees sat in secret; the public did not see how the committees acted. An examination at the bar of the Senate would be an open and public procedure. The people could judge as to the fairness and fulness of the trial; for he held it to be a part of the essence of all trials, in free countries,

that the court should be open, that the people among the rest the sum of $200 paid to a hack might judge the judges, while they judged the writer for a review of one of his (Benton's) speeches accused. Nothing less gave confidence to the against the recharter of the bank, (in which the results of trials, or better supported the tribunals in righteous judgments. This case, above speech, of course, made a sad figure ;) and the furall others, demanded such a public trial. The ther sum of $1,830 27, to a bank editor for printgravity and enormity of the accusation, the ing "upwards of 50,000 copies of the said review,” dignity of the parties making it, the high trust and packing and distributing the same.] of the parties denying it, the elevation of the tribunal before which it was made, and the Mr. B. resumed: The bare reading of this deep interest to their property and liberty, statement shows that the funds of the bank, which involved the whole body of the Ameri-under the direction of the president of the can people in the most anxious suspense for bank, have been used, and largely used, in a just and impartial decision. To the directors supplying the public with electioneering matof the bank themselves, it should be the most ter. He would make no comments upon that It was a case in desirable mode of proceeding. They should evidence. It needed none. even demand it as a right. It will give them which the truth, in this modest, unpretending a voice on this floor. It will enable them form of evidence, would do its business upon to confront their accusers. It will give them the understanding without the aid of argument such a trial as American citizens, free, and or illustration. He would call the attention of proud of their freedom, should aspire to have the Senate to the fact, that there was a material open, public, fair; the Senate for judges, the portion of the funds used under the resolutions American people for spectators and audience, which were wholly unaccounted for, and a and ultimate judges over all concerned. At knowledge of which the Government directors the proper time, therefore, he (Mr. B.) should in vain endeavored to obtain. It seemed to be move to strike out the whole of the second a secret-service fund, such as the ministers of resolution submitted by the Senator from crowned heads had at their disposal in the Kentucky, (Mr. CLAY,) which undertook to European monarchies, and which was to be pronounce judgment without trial, and to insert used for purposes which would not bear the in place of it a resolution to summon Nicholas light. A portion of the money so used by the Biddle, president of the Bank of the United president of the bank-the one-fifth part of it, States, and such other persons as the Senate for the United States owned the one-fifth of the should direct, to appear at the bar of the Senate stock-belonged to the people of the United at some short and convenient day, to be exam-States. It would then result in this: that while ined upon oath as to the causes which led to the late large curtailment of the debts of the bank, and the manner of conducting that cur

tailment.

Mr. B. took up the next great reason assigned by the Secretary for removing the deposits; it was the interference of the bank in the politics and elections of the country. To this most serious charge, the bank, availing itself of a mode of practice known to some courts, but condemned in some others, puts in two pleas of contradictory tenor; that is to say, she pleads double; in one plea denying the truth of the accusation out and out, and in the other admitting it to be true, and justifying it. In a word, she pleaded not guilty, and justification. She should have the benefit of both pleas, and in her own words; for he (Mr. B.) would read them from the little book which the bank itself had prepared and furnished gratis to all the members of Congress, at the commencement of the present session. He had received one, would make his thanks for the favor in due form, and now proceed to use it.

the two Houses of Congress could not by law even spend a dollar of the people's money, without specifying the object, and accounting for the expenditure, the same people might have their money taken out of the Bank of the United States by the president of the institution, and applied to objects unknown and unknowable to the people; unknown and unknowable, in fact, to the guardians of their interests, whom they had stationed in the bank to watch their moneys for them.

Must such a bank have the further keeping of the public moneys? Is it not enough that it has so long had them for such incredible purposes? Is it not enough that it now has seven millions of the public money in its stock, which it wields as it pleases? Is it not enough that the whole amount of its notes are receivable in payment of the public dues, and derive a credit and circulation from that circumstance which enables them to traverse the continent, and pass from hand to hand, without calling at the doors of the bank for any part of that ten millions of specie which lies inactive in the vaults of the bank, while business men are

[Here Mr. B. read copious extracts from the re-screwed to the uttermost for the last dollar, and port of the Government directors, showing in detail, and to whom, enormous sums were paid for printing electioneering matter for the bank, and attacks and criticisms upon the members of Congress who opposed the recharter of the bank

running from broker to broker to purchase money at any price, or any brief period that it can be obtained? Is not all this enough for such a bank, thus governed, without exacting the use of the future deposits for the two years it has to live?

SENATE.]

Removal of the Deposits.

[JANUARY, 1834.

provision in relation to the safe keeping of the | their increased security; that he has no right public funds, but one of precisely the opposite to order them to be withheld from the bank so character. The 16th section expressly provides long as the funds are in safety, and the bank that the deposits shall be made in the bank has faithfully performed the duties imposed in and its branches; and, of course, it is perfectly relation to them; and not even then, unless clear that all powers which the Secretary has the deposits can be placed in safer and more derived from the general and inherent powers faithful hands. That such was the opinion of of his office, in the absence of such provision, the Executive, in the first instance, we have are wholly inapplicable to this case. Nor is it demonstrative proof in the Message of the Presiless clear that, if the section had terminated dent to Congress at the close of the last session, with the provision directing the deposits to be which placed the subject of the removal of the made in the bank, the Secretary would have deposits exclusively on the question of their had no more control over the subject than my-safety; and that such was also the opinion of self, or any other Senator; and it follows, of the House of Representatives then, we have course, that he must derive his power, not from equally conclusive proof, from the vote of that any general reasons connected with the nature body, that the public funds in the bank were of his office, but from some express provision safe; which was understood at that time on contained in the section, or some other part of all sides, by friends and foes, as deciding the the act. It has not been attempted to be shown question of the removal of the deposits. that there is any such provision in any other section or part of the act. The only control, then, which the Secretary can rightfully claim over the deposits, is contained in the provision which directs that the deposits shall be made in the bank, unless otherwise ordered by the Secretary of the Treasury; which brings the whole question, in reference to the deposits, to the extent of the power which Congress intended to confer upon the Secretary, in these few words" unless otherwise ordered."

The extent of the power intended to be conferred being established, the question now arises-Has the Secretary transcended its limit? It can scarcely be necessary to argue this point. It is not even pretended that the public deposits were in danger, or that the bank had not faithfully performed all the duties imposed on it in relation to them; nor that the Secretary placed the money in safer or in more faithful hands. So far otherwise, there is not a man who hears me who will not admit that the public moneys In ascertaining the intention of Congress, are now less safe than they were in the Bank I lay it down as a rule, which, I suppose, will of the United States. And I will venture to not be controverted, that all political powers assert, that not a capitalist can be found who under our free institutions are trust powers, would not ask a considerably higher percentage and not rights, liberties, or immunities, belong-to insure them in their present, than in the ing personally to the officer. I also lay it down as a rule, not less incontrovertible, that trust powers are necessarily limited (unless there be some express provision to the contrary) to the subject, matter, and object of the trust. This brings us to the question-what is the subject and object of the trust in this case? The whole section relates to deposits to the safe and faithful keeping of the public funds. With this view they are directed to be made in the bank. With the same view, and in order to increase the security, power was conferred on the Secretary to withhold the deposits; and, with the same view, he is directed to report his reasons for the removal to Congress. All have one common object-the security of the public funds. To this point the whole section converges. The language of Congress, fairly understood, is, we have selected the bank, because we confide in it as a safe and faithful agent, to keep the public money; but, to prevent the abuse of so important a trust, we invest the Secretary with power to remove the deposits, with a view to their increased security. And, lest the Secretary, on his part, should abuse so important a trust, and in order still further to increase that security, we direct, in case of removal, that he shall report his reasons. It is obvious, under this view of the subject, that the Secretary has no right to act in relation to the deposits, but with a view to

place of deposit designated by law. If these views are correct, and I hold them to be unquestionable, the question is decided. The Secretary has no right to withhold the deposits from the bank. There has been, and can be, but one argument advanced in favor of his right, which has even the appearance of being tenable; that the power to withhold is given in general terms, and without qualification, "unless the Secretary otherwise direct." Those who resort to this argument must assume the position that the letter ought to prevail over the clear and manifest intention of the act. They must regard the power of the Secretary, not as a trust power, limited by the subject and the object of the trust, but as a chartered right, to be used according to his discretion and pleasure. There is a radical defect in our mode of construing political powers, of which this and many other instances afford striking examples; but I will give the Secretary his choice. Either the intention or the letter must prevail. He may select either, but cannot be permitted to take one or the other as may suit his purpose. If he chooses the former, he has transcended his powers, as I have clearly demonstrated. If he selects the latter, he is equally condemned, as he has clearly exercised power not comprehended in the letter of his authority. He has not confined himself simply to withholding the public moneys from