I will now, Sir, state the general substance of the bill which I ask leave to introduce.

The first section proposes to continue the present bank for six years, but with this provision; namely, that so much of the present charter as gives the bank an exclusive right shall not be continued, but that Congress may make any other bank, if it see fit, to come into existence at any time after 1836.

This is the great feature of the bill. It continues the bank for a short period, and takes away the exclusive right. Congress is thus left at perfect liberty to make another bank whenever it chooses. When the present agitation shall have subsided, when a day of calm consideration comes, and the people have had time for deliberation, then Congress may make a permanent provision, satisfactory to itself and to the country. Can any thing be more reasonable than this? Can the bitterest enemy of the present bank refuse to give it time to wind up its affairs without distress to the people? Can the most ardent advocate of a new bank refuse, meantime, to allow the country to relieve itself by the use of the present, until a new one shall be established?

Sir, I am not dealing in plausibilities only. I mean to leave the whole question between this bank and a new one fairly open. I mean to give to neither any manner of advantage. If Congress establish a new bank, it may easily go into operation while the present is gradually retiring from operation, and the business of the country will feel no violent shock. I mean to give the present bank no claim to a renewal; but, on the contrary, the only new power conferred on it by this bill is a power to enable it to wind up its concerns.

As to the time, I think six years not too long. If we were now certain that a new bank would come into existence in 1836, I think it would be convenient for all parties that this bank should have six years to run. The new bank would hardly get into full operation under a year or two, and time is absolutely necessary to enable this bank gradually to collect its debts. A hastened collection must distress the people. With an existing debt of fifty-five millions, and pressed and solicited on all sides still further to extend its loans, in order to relieve the country, all must see that the affairs of the bank cannot be closed without intolerable pressure on the community, unless time be given for that purpose. But if six years be thought too

long, I will consent to five, or to four. My own opinion is, that six years are not too long.

The second section provides, that the public moneys becoming due after the 1st of July shall be deposited in the bank and its branches as heretofore, subject, however, at any time after this act shall be accepted, to be removed by order of Congress. If Congress shall establish a new bank, it will of course remove the deposits into it. The effect of this provision will be to give to Congress, at all times, what rightfully belongs to it, a full control over the public purse. It separates that purse from the sword, and reëstablishes the just authority of the legislature.

For one, I should

Then comes the section by which the bank is to pay to the treasury $200,000 a year, for the six years, as compensation for the benefits of this continuance of its charter. This provision is adopted from the bill of 1832. have been willing that a fixed percentage should have been paid, instead of this bonus, to be divided among the States, according to numbers; but others objected to this, and I have sought to avoid all new causes of difference.

The next section authorizes Congress to restrain the bank from issuing notes of less denomination than twenty dollars, if it shall see fit so to do, any time after March, 1836. This, too, is borrowed from the bill of 1832, and its object was fully discussed on that occasion. That object is to get rid of the circulation of all notes under five dollars, and, by so doing, to extend the specie basis of our circulation. When the States shall direct their own banks to issue no notes less than five dollars, then it is proposed that Congress shall direct the Bank of the United States to issue no notes below twenty dollars. The state of our currency will then be, as I explained the other day, that, up to five dollars, it will be silver and gold; above five dollars, it may be silver and gold, and notes of State banks; and above twenty dollars, silver and gold, and notes of State banks, and notes of the Bank of the United States. This greater use of silver and gold for common purposes and small payments, I have thought to be a desirable object, as I have often before said.

The next section looks to the winding up of the affairs of the bank; and it provides that, at any time within the last three

years of its continuance, its directors may divide among the stockholders any portion of the capital which they may have. withdrawn from active operation. The remaining sections are only such as are formal and necessary; one continues the acts of Congress connected with the bank, such as those providing for forging its notes, and the other requires the acceptance of this bill by the bank in order to give it validity and effect.

Such, Mr. President, are the provisions of this bill. They are few and simple.

1. The bank is to be continued for six years.

2. The deposits are to be restored after the 1st of July.

3. Congress is to be at perfect liberty to create any new bank, at any time after March, 1836.

4. The directors, in order to wind up their concerns, may, three years before the six years expire, begin to divide the capital among the stockholders.

Mr. President, this is the measure which I propose; and it is my settled belief, that, if we cannot carry this, we can carry nothing.

I have thus, Sir, stated my opinions, and discharged my duty. I see the country laboring and struggling and panting under an enormous political evil. I propose a remedy which I am sure will produce relief, if it be adopted, and which seems to me most likely to obtain support. And now, Sir, I put it to every member of Congress, how he can resist this measure, unless by proposing another and a better. Who, among the agents and servants of the people assembled in these houses, is prepared, in the present distressed state of the country, to say, that he will oppose every thing, and propose nothing? For one, Sir, I can only say, that I have been driven to this proposition by an irresistible impulse of obligation to the country. If I had been suddenly called to my great reckoning in another world, I should have felt that one duty was neglected, if I had had no measure to recommend, no expedient to propose, no hope to hold out to this suffering community.

As to the success of this bill, Sir, or any other, I have only to repeat what I have so often said, that every thing rests with the people themselves. In the distracted state of the public counsels, any measure of relief can only be obtained by the decisive demand of the public will.

By an exercise of executive power, which I believe to be illegal, and which all must see to have been injurious, by an unrelenting adherence to the measure which has thus been adopted, in spite of all consequences, and by the force of those motives which influence men to support the measure, though they entirely disapprove it, the country is brought to a condition such as it never before witnessed, and which it cannot long bear. But it is not a condition for despair. Nothing will ruin the country, if the people themselves will undertake its safety; and nothing can save it, if they leave that safety in any hands but their own. Would to God, Sir, that I could draw around me all these twelve millions of people! Would to God that I could speak audibly to every independent elector in the whole land! I would not say to them, vainly and arrogantly, that their safety and happiness require the adoption of any measure recommended by me. But I would say to them, with the sincerest conviction that ever animated man's heart, that their safety and happiness do require their own prompt and patriotic attention to the public concerns, their own honest devotion to the welfare of the state. I would say to them, that neither this measure, nor any measure, can be adopted, except by the cogent and persisting action of popular opinion. I would say to them, that the public revenues cannot be restored to their accustomed custody, that they cannot be again placed under the control of Congress, that the violation of law cannot be redressed, but by manifestations, not to be mistaken, of public sentiment. I would say to them, that the Constitution and the laws, their own rights and their own happiness, all depend on themselves; and if they esteem these of any value, if they were not too dearly bought by the blood of their fathers, if they be an inheritance fit to be transmitted to their posterity, I would beseech them, I would beseech them, to come now to their salvation.

THE PRESIDENTIAL PROTEST.*

MR. PRESIDENT,-I feel the magnitude of this question. We are coming to a vote which cannot fail to produce important effects on the character of the Senate and the character of the government.

Unhappily, Sir, the Senate finds itself involved in a controversy with the President of the United States; a man who has rendered most distinguished services to his country, who has hitherto possessed a degree of popular favor perhaps never exceeded, and whose honesty of motive and integrity of purpose are still admitted by those who maintain that his administration has fallen into lamentable errors.

On some of the interesting questions in regard to which the President and Senate hold opposite opinions, the more popular branch of the legislature concurs with the executive. It is not to be concealed that the Senate is engaged against imposing odds. It can sustain itself only by its own prudence and the justice of its cause. It has no patronage by which to secure friends; it can raise up no advocates through the dispensation of favors, for it has no favors to dispense. Its very constitution, as a body whose members are elected for a long term, is capable of being rendered obnoxious, and is daily made the subject of opprobrious remark. It is already denounced as independent of the people, and aristocratic. Nor is it, like the other house, powerful in its numbers; not being, like that, so large as that its members come constantly in direct and extensive contact with the whole people. Under these disadvantages, Sir, which,

A Speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, on the 7th of May, 1834, on the President's Protest. See note to page 47.