appeared to him to be the duty of Congress to apply a remedy, if a remedy could be devised. A national bank, with other auxiliary measures, was proposed as that remedy. Mr. Clay said he determined to examine the question, with as little prejudice as possible arising from his former opinion. He knew that the safest course to him, if he pursued a cold, calculating prudence, was to adhere to that opinion, right or wrong. He was perfectly aware that if he changed, or seemed to change it, he should expose himself to some censure. But, looking at the subject with the light shed upon it by events happening since the commencement of the war, he could no longer doubt. A bank appeared to him not only necessary, but indispensably necessary, in connexion with another measure, to remedy the evils of which all were but too sensible. He preferred, to the suggestions of the pride of consistency, the evident interests of the community, and determined to throw himseif upon their candor and justice. That which appeared to him in 1811, under the state of things then existing, not to be necessary to the general government, seemed now to be necessary, under the present state of things. Had he then foreseen what now exists, and no objection had laid against the renewal of the charter, other than that derived from the constitution, he should have voted for the renewal.

Other provisions of the constitution, but little noticed, if noticed at all, on the discussions in Congress in 1811, would seem to urge that body to exert all its powers to restore to a sound state the money of the country. That instrument confers upon Congress the power to coin money, and to regulate the value of foreign coins; and the states are prohibited to coin money, to emit bills of credit, or to make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. The plain inference is, that the subject of the general currency was intended to be submitted exclusively to the general government. In point of fact, however, the regulation of the general currency is in the hands of the state governments, or, which is the same thing, of the banks created by them. Their paper has every quality of money except that of being made a tender, and even this is imparted to it by some states, in the law by which a creditor must receive it, or submit to a ruinous suspension of the payment of his debt. It was incumbent upon Congress to recover the control which it had lost over the general currency. The remedy called for was one of caution and moderation, but of firmness. Whether a remedy, directly acting upon the banks and their paper thrown into circulation, was in the power of the general government or not, neither Congress nor the community were prepared for the application of such a remedy. An indirect remedy, of a milder character, seemed to be furnished by a national bank. Going into operation with the powerful aid of the treasury of the United States, he believed it would be highly instrumental in the renewal of specie payments. Coupled with the other measure

adopted by Congress for that object, he believed the remedy effectual. The local banks must follow the example, which the national bank would set them, of redeeming their notes by the payment of specie, or their notes will be discredited and put down.

If the constitution, then, warranted the establishment of a bank, other considerations, besides those already mentioned, strongly urged it. The want of a general medium is every where felt. Exchange varies continually, not only between different parts of the Union, but between different parts of the same city. If the paper of a national bank were not redeemed in specie, it would be much better than the current paper, since, although its value, in comparison with specie, might fluctuate, it would afford an uniform standard.

If political power be incidental to banking corporations, there ought perhaps to be in the general government some counterpoise to that which is exerted by the states. Such a counterpoise might not indeed be so necessary, if the states exercised the power to incorporate banks equally, or in proportion to their respective populations. But that is not the case. A single state has a banking capital equivalent, or nearly so, to one-fifth of the whole banking capital of the United States. Four states, combined, have the major part of the banking capital of the United States. In the event of any convulsion, in which the distribution of banking institutions might be important, it may be urged that the mischief would not be alleviated by the creation of a national bank, since its location must be within one of the states. But in this respect the location of the bank is extremely favorable, being in one of the middle states, not likely, from its position as well as its loyalty, to concur in any scheme for subverting the government. And a sufficient security against such contingency is to be found in the distribution of branches in different states, acting and reacting upon the parent institution, and upon each other.

ADDRESS

To the people of the Congressional District composed of the coun ties of Fayelle, Woodford and Clarke, in Kentucky, 1824.

The relations of your representative and of your neighbor, in which I have so long stood, and in which I have experienced so many strong proofs of your confidence, attachment, and friendship, having just been, the one terminated, and the other suspended, I avail myself of the occason on taking, I hope a temporary, leave of you, to express my unfeigned gratitude for all your favors, and to assure you that I shall cherish a fond and unceasing recollection of them. The extraordinary circumstances in which, during the late session of Congress, I have been placed, and the unmerited animadversions which I have brought upon myself, for an honest and faithful discharge of my public duty, form an additional motive for this appeal to your candor and justice. If, in the office which I have just left, I have abused your confidence and betrayed your interests, I cannot deserve your support in that on the duties of which I have now entered. On the contrary, should it appear that I have been assailed without just cause, and that misguided zeal and interested passions have singled me out as a victim, I cannot doubt that I shall cotinue to find, in the enlightened tribunal of the public, that cheering countenance and impartial judgment, without which a public servant cannot possibly discharge with advantage the trust confided to him.

It is known to you, that my name had been presented, by the respectable states of Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Missouri, for the office of President, to the consideration of the American public, and that it had attracted some attention in other quarters of the Union. When, early in November last, I took my departure from the district to repair to this city, the issue of the Presidential election before the people was unknown. Events, however, had then so far transpired as to render it highly probable that there would be no election by the people, and that I should be excluded from the House of Representatives. It became, therefore, my duty to consider, and to make up an opinion on, the respective pretensions of the three gentlemen that might be returned, and at that early period I stated to Dr. Drake, one of the professors in the Medical school of Transylvania University, and to John J. Crittenden, Esq., of Frankfort, my determination to support Mr. Adams in preference to Gen. Jackson. I wrote to Charles Hammond, Esq., of Cincinnati, about the same time, and mentioned certain objections to the election of Mr. Crawford, (among which was that of his continued ill health,) that appeared to me almost insuperable. During my journey hither, and up to near Christmas, it remained uncertain whether Mr. Craw

ford or I would be returned to the House of Representatives.Up to near Christmas, all our information made it highly probable that the vote of Louisiana would be given to me, and that I should consequently be returned, to the exclusion of Mr. Crawford. And, whilst that probability was strong, I communicated to Mr. Senator Johnston, from Louisiana, my resolution not to allow my name, in consequence of the small number of votes by which it would be carried into the house, if I were returned, to constitute an obstacle, for one moment, to an election in the House of Representatives.

During the month of December, and the greater part of January, strong professions of high consideration, and of unbounded admiration of me, were made to my friends, in the greatest profusion, by some of the active friends of all the returned candidates. Every body professed to regret, after I was excluded from the house, that I had not been returned to it. I seemed to be the favorite of every body. Describing my situation to a distant friend, I said to him, "I am enjoying, whilst alive, the posthumous honors which are usually awarded to the venerated dead." A person not acquainted with human nature would have been surprised, in listening to these praises, that the object of them had not been elected by general acclamation. None made more or warmer manifestations of these sentiments of esteem and admiration than some of the friends of Gen. Jackson. None were so reserved as those of Mr. Adams; under an opinion, (as I have learnt since the election,) which they early imbibed, that the western vote would be only influenced by its own sense of public duty; and that if its judgment pointed to any other than Mr. Adams, nothing which they could do would secure it to him.These professions and manifestations were taken by me for what they were worth. I knew that the sunbeams would quickly disappear, after my opinion should be ascertained, and that they would be succeeded by a storm; although I did not foresee exactly how it would burst upon my poor head. I found myself transformed from a candidate before the people, into an elector for the people. I deliberately examined the duties incident to this new attitude, and weighed all the facts before me, upon which my judgment was to be formed or reviewed. If the eagerness of any of the heated partisans of the respective candidates suggested a tardiness in the declaration of my intention, I believed that the new relation, in which I was placed to the subject, imposed on me an obligation to pay some respect to delicacy and decorum.

Meanwhile that very reserve supplied aliment to newspaper criticism. The critics could not comprehend how a man standing as I had stood toward the other gentlemen, should be restrained, by a sense of propriety, from instantly fighting under the banners of one of them, against the others. Letters were is sued from the manufactory at Washington, to come back, after performing long journeys, for Washington consumption. These

letters imputed to "Mr. Clay and his friends a mysterious air, a portentous silence," &c. From dark and distant hints the progress was easy to open and bitter denunciation. Anonymous letters, full of menace and abuse, were almost daily poured in on me. Personal threats were communicated to me, through friendly organs, and I was kindly apprised of all the glories of village effigies which awaited me. A systematic attack was simultaneously commenced upon me from Boston to Charleston, with an object, present and future, which it was impossible to mistake.No man but myself could know the nature, extent, and variety of means which were employed to awe and influence me. I bore them, I trust, as your representative ought to have borne them, and as became me. Then followed the letter, afterwards adopted as his own by Mr. Kremer, to the Columbian Observer.With its character and contents you are well acquainted. When I saw that letter, alledged to be written by a member of the very house over which I was presiding, who was so far designated as to be described as belonging to a particular delegation, by name, a member with whom I might be daily exchanging, at least on my part, friendly salutations, and who was possibly receiving from me constantly acts of courtesy and kindness, I felt that I could no longer remain silent. A crisis appeared to me to have arisen in my public life. I issued my card. I ought not to have put in it the last paragraph, because, although it does not necessarily imply the resort to a personal combat, it admits of that construction: nor will I conceal, that such a possible issue was within my contemplation. I owe it to the community to say, that whatever heretofore I may have done, or by inevitable circumstances, might be forced to do, no man in it holds in deeper abhorrence than I do, that pernicious practice. Condemned as it must be by the judgment and philosophy, to say nothing of the religion, of every thinking man, it is an affair of feeling about which we cannot, although we should, reason. Its true corrective will be found when all shall unite, as all ought to unite, in its unqualified proscription.

A few days after the publication of my card, "Another Card," under Mr. Kremer's name, was published in the Intelligencer.The night before, as I was voluntarily informed, Mr. Eaton, a Senator from Tennessee, and the biographer of Gen. Jackson, (who boarded in the end of this city opposite to that in which Mr. Kremer took up his abode, a distance of about two miles and a half) was closeted for some time with him. Mr. Kremer is entitled to great credit for having overcome all the disadvantages, incident to his early life and want of education, and forced his way to the honorable station of a member of the House of Representatives. Ardent in his attachment to the cause which he had espoused, Gen. Jackson is his idol, and of his blind zeal others have availed themselves, and have made him their dupe and their instrument. I do not pretend to know the object of Mr. Eaton's visit to him. I state the fact, as it was communica