tors in the country, to date the ruin and desola- true condition you have just seen exhibited in tion of the country. Mr. B. then showed a statement of the imports and exports of specie and bullion, from the first of October, 1833, to the 11th of June, instant. Mr. B. recapitulated the evidences of national prosperity increased imports-revenue from customs exceeding the estimate-increased revenue from public lands-increased amount of specie above eleven millions of available funds now in the treasury-domestic and foreign commerce active-the price of produce and property fair and good-labor every where finding employment and reward-more money in the country than ever was in it at any one time before-the numerous advertisements for the purchase of slaves, in the papers of this city, for the Southern market, which indicated the high price of Southern products-and affirmed his conscientious belief, that the country was more prosperous at this time than at any period of its existence; and inveighed in terms of strong indignation against the arts and artifices, which for the last six months had disturbed and agitated the country, and done serious mischief to many individuals. He regretted the miscarriage of the attempt to examine the Bank of the United States, which he believed would have completed the proof against that institution for its share in getting up an unnatural and factitious scene of distress, in the midst of real prosperity. But he did not limit his invective to the bank, but came directly to the Senate, and charged a full share upon the theatrical distress speeches, delivered upon the floor of the Senate, in imitation of Volney's soliloquy over the ruins of Palmyra. He repeated some passages from the most affecting of these lamentations over the desolation of the country, such as the Senate had been accustomed to hear about the time of the New-York and Virginia elections. "The canal a solitude! The lake a desert waste of waters! That populous city lately resounding with the hum of busy multitudes, now silent and sad! A whole nation, in the midst of unparalleled prosperity, and Arcadian felicity, suddenly struck into poverty, and plunged into unutterable woe! and all this by the direful act of one wilful man!" Such, said Mr. B., were the lamentations over the ruins, not of the Tadmor in the desert, but of this America, whose the faithful report of the Secretary of the Treasury. Not even the "baseless fabric of a vision" was ever more destitute of foundation, than those lamentable accounts of desolation. The lamentation has ceased; the panic has gone off; would to God he could follow out the noble line of the poet, and say, "leaving not a wreck behind." But he could not say that. There were wrecks! wrecks of merchants in every city in which the bank tried its cruel policy, and wrecks of banks in this district, where the panic speeches fell thickest and loudest upon the ears of an astonished and terrified community! But, continued Mr. B., the game is up; the alarm is over; the people are tired of it; the agitators have ceased to work the engine of alarm. A month ago he had said it was "the last of pea-time" with these distress memorials; he would now use a bolder figure, and say, that the Secretary's report, just read, had expelled forever the ghost of alarm from the chamber of the Senate. All ghosts, said Mr. B., are afraid of the light. The crowing of the cock-the break of day-remits them all, the whole shadowy tribe, to their dark and dreary abodes. How then can this poor ghost of alarm, which has done such hard service for six months past, how can it stand the full light, the broad glare, the clear sunshine of the Secretary's report? "Alas, poor ghost!" The shade of the "noble Dane " never quit the stage under a more inexorable law than the one which now drives thee away! This report, replete with plain facts, and luminous truths, puts to flight the apparition of distress, breaks down the whole machinery of alarm, and proves that the American people are, at this day, the most prosperous people on which the beneficent sun of heaven did ever shine! Mr. B. congratulated himself that the spectre of distress could never be made to cross the Mississippi. It made but slow progress any where in the Great Valley, but was balked at the King of Floods. A letter from St. Louis informed him that an attempt had just been made to get up a distress meeting in the town of St. Louis; but without effect. The officers were obtained, and according to the approved rule of such meetings, they were converts from Jacksonism; but there the distress proceedings stopped, and took another turn. The farce could not be played in that town. The actors the bank was full of money; without pretext, would not mount the stage. for the deposit farce is over; without the aid of panic speeches, for the Senate will not be in session. Mr. B. said, that among the strange events which took place in this world, nothing could be more strange than to find, in our own country, and in the nineteenth century, any practical illustration of the ancient doctrine of the metempsychosis. Stranger still, if that doctrine should be so far improved, as to take effect in soulless bodies; for, according to the founders of the doctrine, the soul alone could transmigrate. Now, corporations had no souls; that was law, laid down by all the books: that all corporations, moneyed ones especially, and above all, the Bank of the United States, was most soulless. Yet the rumor was, that this bank intended to attempt the operation of effecting a transfer of her soul; and after submitting to death in her present form, to rise up in a new Mr. B. spoke of the circulation of the Bank of the United States, and said that its notes might be withdrawn without being felt or known by the community. It contributed but four millions and a quarter to the circulation at this time. He verified this statement by showing that the bank had twelve millions and a quarter of specie in its vaults, and but sixteen millions and a half of notes in circulation. The difference was four millions and a quarter; and that was the precise amount which that gigantic institution now contributed to the circulation of the country! Only four millions and a quarter. If the gold bill passed, and raised gold sixteen to one, there would be more than that amount of gold in circulation in three months. The foreign coin bill, and the gold bill, would give the country many dollars in specie, without interest, for each paper dollar which the bank issues, and for which the country pays so dearly. The dis-one. Mr. B. said he, for one, should be ready solution of the bank would turn out twelve millions and a quarter of specie, to circulate among the people; and the sooner that is done the better it will be for the country. The The Bank is now a nuisance, said Mr. B. With upwards of twelve millions in specie, and less than seventeen millions in circulation, and only fifty-two millions of loans, it pretends that it cannot lend a dollar, not even to business men, to be returned in sixty days; when, two years ago, with only six millions of specie and twentytwo millions of circulation, it ran up its loans to seventy millions. The president of the bank then swore, that all above six millions of specie was a surplus! How is it now, with near double as much specie, and five millions less of notes out, and twelve millions less of debt? bank needs less specie than any other banking institution, because its notes are receivable, by law, in all federal payments; and from that circumstance alone would be current, at par, although the bank itself might be wholly unable to redeem them. Such a bank is a nuisance. It is the dog in the manger. It might lend money to business men, at short dates, to the last day of its existence; yet the signs are for a new pressure; a new game of distress for the fall elections in Pennsylvania, New-York, and Ohio. If that game should be attempted, Mr. B. said, it would have to be done withou excuse, for for the old sinner, come in the body of what beast it might. No form should deceive him, not even if it condescended, in its new shape, to issue from Wall-street instead of Chestnut! A word more, and Mr. B. was done. It was a word to those gentlemen whose declarations, many ten thousand times issued from this floor, had deluded a hundred thousand people to send memorials here, certifying what those gentlemen so incontinently repeated, that the removal of the deposits had made the distress, and nothing but the restoration of the deposits, or the renewal of the charter, could remove the distress! Well! the deposits are not restored, and the charter is not renewed; and yet the distress is gone! What is the inference? Why that gentlemen are convicted, and condemned, upon their own argument! They leave this chamber to go home, self-convicted upon the very test which they themselves have established; and after hav ing declared, for six months, upon this floor, that the removal of the deposits made the dis tress, and nothing but their restoration, or the renewal of the bank charter, could relieve it, and that they would sit here until the dog-days, and the winter solstice, to effect this restoration or renewal: they now go home in good time for harvest, without effecting the restoration or the renewal; and find every where, as they go the evidences of the highest prosperity which ever blessed the land. Yes! repeated and exclaimed Mr. B. with great emphasis, the deposits are not restored-the charter is not renewed-the distress is gone-and the distress speeches have ceased! No more lamentation over the desolation of the land now; and a gentleman who should undertake to entertain the Senate again in that vein, in the face of the present national prosperity-in the face of the present report from the Secretary of the Treasury-would be stared at, as the Trojans were accustomed to stare at the frantic exhibitions of Priam's distracted daughter, while vaticinating the downfall of Troy in the midst of the heroic exploits of Hector. At the conclusion of this speech Mr. Webster spoke a few words, signifying that foreigners might have made the importations which kept up the revenue; and Mr. Chambers, of Maryland, spoke more fully, to show that there was not time yet for the distress to work its effect nationally. Mr. Webster then varied his motion, and, instead of sending the Secretary's report to the Finance Committee, moved to lay it upon the table: which was done: and being printed, and passed into the newspapers, with the speech to emblazon it, had a great effect in bringing the panic to a close. CHAPTER CVIII. REVIVAL OF THE GOLD CURRENCY. A MEASURE of relief was now at hand, before which the machinery of distress was to balk, and cease its long and cruel labors: it was the passage of the bill for equalizing the value of gold and silver, and legalizing the tender of foreign coins of both metals. The bills were brought forward in the House by Mr. Campbell P. White of New-York, and passed after an animated contest, in which the chief question was as to the true relative value of the two metals, varied by some into a preference for national bank paper. Fifteen and five-eighths to one was the ratio of nearly all who seemed best calculated, from their pursuits, to understand the subject. The thick array of speakers was on that side; and the eighteen banks of the city of New-York, with Mr. Gallatin at their head, fa vored that proportion. The difficulty of adjust ing this value, so that neither metal should expel the other, had been the stumbling block for a great many years; and now this difficulty seemed to be as formidable as ever. Refined calculations were gone into: scientific light was sought: history was rummaged back to the times of the Roman empire: and there seemed to be no way of getting to a concord of opinion either from the lights of science, the voice of history, or the result of calculations. The author of this View had (in his speeches on the subject), taken up the question in a practical point of view, regardless of history, and calculations, and the opinions of bank officers; and looking to the actual, and equal, circulation of the two metals in different countries, he saw that this equality and actuality of circulation had existed for above three hundred years in the Spanish dominions of Mexico and South America, where the proportion was 16 to one. Taking his stand upon this single fact, as the practical test which solved the question, all the real friends of the gold currency soon rallied to it. Mr. White gave up the bill which he had first introduced, and adopted the Spanish ratio. Mr. Clowney of South Carolina, Mr. Gillet and Mr. Cambreleng of New-York, Mr. Ewing of Indiana, Mr. McKim of Maryland, and other speakers, gave it a warm support. Mr. John Quincy Adams would vote for it, though he thought the gold was over-valued; but if found to be so, the difference could be corrected hereafter. The principal speakers against it and in favor of a lower rate, were Messrs. Gorham of Massachusetts; Selden of New-York; Binney of Pennsylvania; and Wilde of Georgia. And, eventually the bill was passed by a large majority-145 to 36. In the Senate it had an easy passage. Mr. Calhoun and Webster supported it: Mr. Clay opposed it: and on the final vote there were but seven negatives: Messrs. Chambers of Maryland; Clay; Knight of Rhode Island; Alexander Porter of Louisiana; Silsbee of Massachusetts; Southard of New Jersey; Sprague of Maine. seen. The good effects of the bill were immediately Gold began to flow into the country through all the channels of commerce: old chests gave up their hordes: the mint was busy and in a few months, and as if by magic, a currency banished from the country for thirty years, overspread the land, and gave joy and confidence he having done nothing since he came into the cabinet to subject him to the fate of his predecessor, though fully concurring with the President in all his measures in relation to the bank. to all the pursuits of industry. But this joy Mr. Taney for Secretary of the Treasury. He was not universal. A large interest connected had offended the Bank of the United States too with the Bank of the United States, and its sub- much to expect his confirmation in the present sidiary and subaltern institutions, and the whole temper of the Senate. He had a right to hold paper system, vehemently opposed it; and back the nomination to the last day of the ses spared neither pains nor expense to check its sion, as the recess appointment was valid to its circulation, and to bring odium upon its sup- end; and he retained it to the last week, not porters People were alarmed with counterfeits. being willing to lose the able and faithful serGilt counters were exhibited in the markets, to vices of that gentleman during the actual sesalarm the ignorant. The coin itself was bur- sion of Congress. At last, on the 23d of June, lesqued, in mock imitations of brass or copper, the nomination was sent in, and immediately rewith grotesque figures, and ludicrous inscriptions_jected by the usual majority in all cases in -the "whole hog" and the "better currency," which the bank was concerned. Mr. Taney, being the favorite devices. Many newspapers the same day resigned his place; and Mr. expended their daily wit in its stale depreciation. McClintock Young, first clerk of the treasury, The most exalted of the paper money party, remained by law acting Secretary. Mr. Benjawould recoil a step when it was offered to them, min Franklin Butler, of New-York, nominated and beg for paper. The name of "Gold humbug" for the place of attorney-general, was confirmed was fastened upon the person supposed to have been chiefly instrumental in bringing the derided coin into existence; and he, not to be abashed, made its eulogy a standing theme-vaunting its excellence, boasting its coming abundance, to spread over the land, flow up the Mississippi, shine through the interstices of the long silken purse, and to be locked up safely in the farmer's trusty oaken chest. For a year there was a real war of the paper against gold. But there was something that was an overmatch for the arts, or power, of the paper system in this particular, and which needed no persuasions to guide it when it had its choice: it was the instinctive feeling of the masses! which told them that money which would jingle in the pocket was the right money for them-that hard money was the right money for hard hands-that gold was the true currency for every man that had any thing true to give for it, either in labor or property: and upon these instinctive feelings gold became the avidious demand of the vast operative and producing classes. CHAPTER CIX. REJECTION OF MR. TANEY, NOMINATED FOR A PRESENTIMENT of what was to happen induced the President to delay, until near the end of the session, the nomination to the Senate of CHAPTER CX. SENATORIAL INVESTIGATION OF THE BANK OF THIS corporation had lost so much ground in the public estimation, by repulsing the investigation attempted by the House of Representatives, that it became necessary to retrieve the loss by some report in its favor. The friends of the institution determined, therefore, to have an investigation made by the Senate-by the Finance Committee of that body. In conformity to this determination Mr. Southard, on the last day of the session moved that that committee should have leave to sit during the recess of the Senate to inquire whether the Bank of the United States had violated its charter-whether it was a safe depository of the public moneysand what had been its conduct since 1832 in regard to extension and curtailment of loans, and its general management since that time. The committee to whom this investigation was committed, consisted of Messrs. Webster, Tyler, Ewing, Mangum, and Wilkins. Of this committee all, except the last named, were the opponents of the administration, friends of the mittee that he was on his way to appear before them in obedience to their summons. And it was under these circumstances that the existing committee was authorized to remain in session for his arrival-to receive his testimonypublish it—and dissolve. No perambulation through the country-no indefinite session-no putting members upon Congress per diems and mileage from one session to another. Wrongful and abuseful in its creation, this peripa tetic committee of the Senate was equally so in its composition and object. It was composed of the advocates of the bank, and its object evidently was to retrieve for that institution a part of the ground which it had lost; and was so viewed by the community. The clear-sighted masses saw nothing in it but a contrivance to varnish the bank, and the odious appellation of "whitewashing committee” was fastened upon it. CHAPTER CXI. bank, its zealous advocates in all the questions between it and the government, speaking ardently in its favor, and voting with it on all questions during the session. Mr. Wilkins very properly refused to serve on the committee; and Mr. King of Alabama, being proposed in his place, also, and with equal propriety, refused to serve. This act of the Senate in thus undertaking to examine the bank after a repulse of the committee of the House of Representatives and still standing out in contempt of that House, and by a committee so composed, and so restricted, completed the measure of mortification to all the friends of the American Senate. It was deemed a cruel wound given to itself by the Senate. It was a wrong thing, done in a wrong way, and could have no result but to lessen the dignity and respectability of the Senate. The members of the committee were the advocates of the bank, and its public defenders on all the points to be examined. This was a violation of parliamentary law, as well as of the first principles of decency and propriety-the whole of which require criminatory investigations to be made, by those who make the accusations. It was to be done in vacation; for which purpose the committee was to sit in the recess-a proceeding without precedent, without warrant from any word in the constitution and susceptible of the most abuse-opening gradeur of Rome, he deemed himself ful and factious use. The only semblance of precedent for it was the committee of the House in 1824, on the memorial of Mr. Ninian Edwards against Mr. Crawford in that year; but that was no warrant for this proceeding. It was a mere authority to an existing committee which had gone through its examination, and made its report to the House, to continue its session after the House adjourned to take the deposition of the principal witness, detained by sickness, but on his way to the examination. This deposition the committee were to take, publish, and be dissolved; and so it was done accordingly. And even this slight continuation of a committee was obtained from the House with difficulty, and under the most urgent circumstances. Mr. Crawford was a candidate for the presidency; the election was to come on before Congress met again; Mr. Edwards had made criminal charges against him; all the testimony had been taken, except that of Mr. Edwards himself; and he had notified the com DOWNFALL OF THE BANK OF THE UNITED WHEN the author of the Eneid had shown the justified in departing from the chronological order of events to look ahead, and give a glimpse of the dead Marcellus, hope and heir of the Augustan empire; in the like manner the writer of this View, after having shown the greatness of the United States Bank-exemplified in her capacity to have Jackson condemned the government directors and a secretary of the treasury rejected-a committee of the House of Representatives repulsed-the country convulsed and agonized-and to obtain from the Senate of the United States a committee to proceed to the city of Philadelphia to "wash out its foul linen;"-after seeing all this and beholding the greatness of the moneyed power at the culminating point of its domination, I feel justified in looking ahead a few years to see it in its altered phase-in its ruined and fallen estate. And this shall be done in the simplest form of exhibition; namely: by copying some announcements from the Philadelphia papers of the day. Thus: 1. "Resolved (by the stockholders), that |