our tables with their remonstrances and memorials, and filled our halls with their committees. No measure of relief, meantime, was suggested by gentlemen connected with the administration. The only remedy was, as it now is, endurance. If we spoke of distress, they bade us hold our tongues and bear it. The sum and substance of their political philosophy was, "We must stand by the President; we must hold on upon the experiment."

In this state of things, Sir, I felt it my duty to prepare, for the consideration of Congress and the country, some measure of immediate and efficient relief. It might be rejected; but then an offer would have been made. The devotees to the experiment might cling to it, extol its wisdom, and predict its success; but the country would have an option. The condition of the country was such as was not to be trifled with; and therefore I sought for a measure that, if adopted, could not fail to be effectual. Against rash experiment, I prepared well-tried experience; in opposition to daring and speculative theory, I offered what forty years had proved to be safe, practical, and beneficial. Allow me to advert to the main provisions of the bill which I recommended, as I desire its character should be kept, to the eye of the public, in a clear and distinct light.

A short continuance of the present charter, with an addition of its exclusive right; so that, while this bank still continued, Congress, at its leisure, might provide another, if it chose, and bring it into existence, to take the place of this, at the end of six years;

A restoration of the deposits;

And a provision for enlarging the specie circulation, so as to increase, in fact, to a great extent, the hard money of the country, and to discountenance the circulation of small notes.

This is the substance of the measure, and if it shall be adopted the country will be relieved, and the bank will have time. to collect its debts, and wind up its concerns, Congress will be at liberty, also, to adopt any system for the future which its wisdom shall approve; it may recharter this bank; it may create a new bank; it may decide it will have no bank. Meantime, and until its final decision shall be made, business will resume its wonted course, employment will revive, labor will be again in demand, commerce will spread its sails, and revenue begin

again to flow into the treasury. If there be one intelligent individual who denies that all these consequences would immediately follow the passage of this bill, that individual I have not met with. What is said is, not that this measure would not produce these beneficial effects, but that we can get along without it; that the experiment will yet succeed; and that, at any rate, the President and the party will put down the bank. If, Sir, this bill had passed within a fortnight from the time of its introduction, the country at this hour would have begun to resume its accustomed prosperity, activity, and cheerfulness; we should have despatched the public business, and been ready to go home, by the first day of June, to receive the cordial welcome of our constituents.

If we could pass it now, although the case has been growing constantly worse, yet even now it would in ten days give an entire change to the face of things. It would in a month put the cotton-mills again in motion, bring up the prices of lumber, wheat, and other products of the farm, reanimate internal trade, put life into the factories, and the mechanic pursuits, in which life is now suspended, gladden labor with the certainty of fair wages, restore confidence, bring back credit, and make the country once more what it was twelve months ago. All this good is within our reach, if we will abandon theories, when they are proved and demonstrated to be fallacious; give up follies, now that they stand as exposed and acknowledged follies; and restore the reign of the law, of justice, of good sense, and of experience.

When I last addressed the Senate on this subject, in the latter part of March, I manifested my intention to call it up again on the 21st of April. The opinion of the Senate, both on the causes of the public distress, and on the proper remedy, were very well known. A majority, it was not doubted, disapproved the whole executive proceeding in removing the public moneys from the bank, and would regard their return as the first step in reëstablishing a proper state of things. And a continuance of the present bank, with modifications, was supposed, also, to be the measure which a majority was most likely to concur in, as the remedy best suited to the occasion. The House of Representatives had done nothing to commit itself, one way or the other. Whatever might be conjectured of its course, it had come to no decision.

But before the 21st of April came, that honorable body had expressed its opinion. It had decided, by a very large majority, and in the most general terms, that the bank should not be rechartered. While this purpose remains, it is obvious that any proceeding of the Senate on the subject must be nugatory. The Senate cannot recharter the bank. The Senate, of itself, has no power to pass measures for the public relief. It can, indeed, check the measures of other branches; it can resist what it deems to be wrong, and it may show itself ready to concur in wise and proper measures of relief; but it can do no more. It would seem, therefore, to be hardly worth while to occupy the attention of the Senate with propositions for relief, to which the other house has, beforehand, manifested its determined opposition. Until there is some intimation of a change of opinion in that house, it is useless to press the measure which I proposed. For the present, therefore, I shall suffer the subject to remain where it is. When I shall next call it up will, of course, depend on circumstances. Of the measure itself, I retain the same opinion as I expressed on its introduction. It is a prompt measure; it is an efficient measure; it is a conciliatory measure; and it is the only measure which promises relief to the country. These are my opinions; and those who oppose this measure, and have nothing to propose but a confirmation of the present state of things, act on their own responsibility. Sir, the question is before the country. Shall the bank be rechartered for a short period, until it can collect its debts, and wind up its concerns, without distressing the people? or shall it be left to collect its debts in the short period of its charter which yet remains, whatever may be the consequences to the public?

Mr. President, if Congress see fit to embrace the latter branch of the alternative; if it will not recharter the bank, even for a day, or under any modification; if it will make no new bank; if it will leave the country, in its present condition, to struggle with its difficulties and its distresses as it can;- it will be recollected, at least, that all this is not the result of necessity. It will be recollected that a different policy was proposed; that a fair and conciliatory measure was offered, was earnestly pressed on the attention of Congress, and was rejected.

Let gentlemen, then, Sir, take the consequences upon them

selves. If the summer shall prove to be one of great embarrassment; if business shall be suspended; if trade shall stagnate; if employment for labor shall not be found; if the revenue shall fall off one half, let it be remembered, that these consequences, one and all, might have been this day easily prevented; that plain, easy, and adequate means of prevention were proposed, but that gentlemen chose to adhere to their theories, their experiments, and their predetermined course of policy, against all remonstrances, as well within the walls of Congress as without.

Mr. President, while, like others, I am engaged here every morning in presenting to the Senate the proceedings of public meetings and the memorials of individuals, supplicating Congress to restore the public prosperity and to reestablish the authority of the laws, I think it due to those who thus do me the honor to make me the organ of their sentiments and their wishes, and indeed to the whole country, that I should express my own opinions upon the present state of things, and upon the prospects before us.

In the first place, then, Sir, I wish to express my belief, that nearly all practical men and men of business in the country, friends or foes of the administration, have become satisfied that the "experiment" is a complete failure. Whatever some may, at one time, have believed, and whatever others have hoped, eight months' experience has settled the question. Yes, Sir, I believe that friends as well as foes now see that the attempt to sustain the currency and maintain commercial credit by the aid of State banks has hopelessly failed. With all the aid of government, with all that party zeal could do for them, these banks have not been able to relieve the community; they have not been able to restore confidence. Confidence is a thing not to be produced by compulsion. Men cannot be forced into trust. Good credit, within local limits, these banks, or some of them, possessed; but there it naturally stopped, and cannot be forced farther.

As far as I understand, at least in this part of the country, the usual occurrences are these. If a man has the notes of State banks to any amount, he goes to the banks, and gets specie for them. Having obtained his specie, he very often goes to the Bank of the United States, and exchanges it for bills. The re

turns made to Congress from the deposit banks, and all our information, official and unofficial, clearly show that they are not competent to relieve the country. The experiment, I repeat, Sir, has already failed. Men feel that it has failed. The friends. of the administration feel that it has failed. I speak confidently, and am willing it should be remembered that I have so spoken; and I say that at this very hour, in my opinion, the conviction is general that the measures adopted by government have not produced, and cannot produce, the expected beneficial effect.

As to what is before us, Sir, my opinion is, we are to look forward to a summer and autumn of very great difficulty. There may be occasional and temporary relaxations of suffering, but there can be no permanent relief. Men of capital will be alarmed; active men of business will be timid; those who have any thing will rather seek to secure it, than to hazard it in the attempt to make more. Employment will be scarce, wages low, and above all, or rather, perhaps, as the cause of all, a want of confidence, an uncertainty about the future, a distrust in the currency, and a distrust in government, will continue to paralyze the whole community.

If we break up here, having done nothing, we shall go home to meet nothing but complaints and trouble. Can any of these advocates of "experiments" tell me how the condition of the country is to be changed for the better before the next meeting of Congress? How is business to revive? How is occupation for the laboring classes to be obtained? How is commerce to be extended? How is internal trade, especially, to regain its facilities and advantages? How are exchanges to be reëstablished? And what is to become of the revenue? Will gentlemen longer sleep over this last subject? Do they not now see, that the Secretary's estimates cannot be realized? Sir, the honorable member from Kentucky has called for an account of the receipts at the treasury for the year, thus far. When those accounts come, they will open gentlemen's eyes; they will show sad disappointment. I cannot speak with precision as to the extent of defalcation, but I do not speak altogether at random when I give my opinion on this subject. From the best lights I can obtain, there will be a deficiency in the receipts of the customs of at least one third of the expected amount; perhaps