plus should be vested in State stocks, and that whenever any further surplus might occur, it should be vested in the same manner. When the bill to regulate the State banks was under consideration, and a new section was proposed, distributing the forty millions of surplus among the States, Mr. Wright moved to strike out that provision, and to insert instead another clause, vesting the whole of the money in State bonds. Again, when the first sub-treasury bill was brought forward, the same gentleman tacked to it a provision, that the surplus amounts in the treasury should be vested in State bonds. Finally, there were other sums, which we held in trust, from the sale of Indian lands, for the payment of Indian annuities, as well as the Smithsonian legacy, which were also authorized to be invested in State bonds. I say, therefore, that so long as the contraction of those State debts was favorable to the administration, they were the foremost of all men in fostering State credits, and in encouraging the States to enlarge their liabilities. For my associate, Mr. Wright, declared "that he would undertake to say, that he was not afraid to recommend such an investment of the national funds, as the States would issue as many bonds as the government might choose to buy!"

But now, after all this, these same gentlemen, overreaching the whole intervening period, and going back to the beginning, reproach and criminate the States, from the very outset, for contracting the engagements to which the government itself incited them. I do not say that this was an assumption of the State debts, but it certainly was holding them up to Europe and the world as worthy of confidence, so long as it suited the purposes of the administration so to do. And very pretty purposes it would have answered, in view of the coming election, had they succeeded in their object, and the Secretary of the Treasury been vested with unlimited discretion to purchase State bonds at his pleasure. Suppose such a power now existed, and Mr. Woodbury, conscientious and scrupulous as he is known to be, were asked by us of Massachusetts, for instance, or had lately been asked by our good sister of Maine, to invest money in State bonds; how do you think the money would have been applied? No doubt it would have been given freely to the patriotic States, but as carefully withheld from those not deemed worthy of that title.

For this declaration, that the Whigs in Congress are in favor of the assumption of the State debts by the general government, there exists not one particle of proof, nor the least possible foundation. I do not myself know a single man in Congress, who holds the opinion that the general government has any more right to pay the debts of a State, than it has to pay the debts of a private individual. Congress might as well undertake to pay the debts of John Jacob Astor, as of the State of New York. I exempt, however, from these remarks, the distribution among the States of the proceeds of the public lands, and their application to pay the debts of the States, should the States choose so to apply the money. But I say there is no foundation whatever for such a plan of assumption as Mr. Benton and Mr. Grundy have so zealously declaimed against in the United States Senate.

You have all heard in the public papers, (and it is one of the most despicable of all the inventions of the enemy,) that transactions took place, in which I had a part, the object of which was to persuade Congress to assume the State obligations, and that I went to England for the worthy purpose of furthering such a design. Now, as I am among you this day as among my friends, I will tell you all about it. I left this country in May, 1839. At that time I had neither read nor heard from living man of any such design. I went to England, and I must be permitted to say that it was a most gloomy time, so far as American securities in general, and the State debts in particular, were concerned. But I declare to you on my honor, that no European banker or foreign holder of State securities ever suggested to me, in the remotest manner, the least notion of the assumption of the State debts by the general government. Once, indeed, I did hear the idea started by an American citizen; but I immediately told him that such a thing was wholly unconstitutional, and never could be effected, unless the people should adopt a new constitution. It was quite natural that I should be applied to in reference to the State debts. The State to which I belong had sent out some stock to England to be sold, and so, I believe, had the State of New York. We heard, continually, the most gloomy accounts from the United States; and, in fact, this very thing was, to use a common expression, a great damper to my enjoyment while abroad. People frequently

applied to me to know what security there was, that the American debts would be finally paid, and the interest, in the mean time, regularly discharged. I told them they might rely on the plighted faith of the States, and their ability to redeem their obligations. Nobody asked me whether there could be a United States guaranty to that effect, nor did I suggest such an idea to any one. Gentlemen came to me to ask about the Massachusetts bonds. They liked the offer of five per cent. interest very much, as this was high for an English capitalist; but they wanted to know what assurance I could give that the investment would be a safe one. I went to my trunk, and took out an abstract of the official return of the amount of the productive labor of Massachusetts. I put this into the hand of one of those inquirers, and told him to take it home and study it. He did so, and in two days returned, and invested forty thousand pounds sterling in Massachusetts stock. Others came, and made similar inquiries as to New York securities. I gave them a copy of the very able and admirable report made by your townsman, Mr. Ruggles, in 1838, and they came back satisfied. But to none did I suggest, or in the remotest manner hint, that they could look to the United States to secure the debt. I endeavored to uphold the credit of all the States. I remembered that they were all my countrymen, and I stated facts in relation to each as favorably as truth would allow. And what happened then? Gentlemen, it is fit that you should know that there exists a certain clique in London, who are animated by an inextinguishable hate of American credit. You may set it down as a fact, that it is their daily, their incessant vocation, to endeavor to impair the credit of every one of the States, and to represent the purchase of their bonds as an unwise and dangerous investment of money. On this subject their ferocity knows no mitigation; it is deaf to all justice, and proof against all reason. The more you show them it is wrong, the more tenacity of purpose do they exhibit. That part of the public press over which they have control is furnished, I am ashamed to say, with matter drawn from publications which originate in this city, and the object of which is to prove that State bonds are so much waste paper, the State having no right to issue any such obligations, and their holders being, therefore, utterly destitute of any security. And these miserable and contemptible speculations are

put into the papers of the largest circulation in Europe, and enforced by all the aid they can derive from editorial sanction. It was under circumstances like these that a large banking-house in London put to me, as a lawyer, the professional question, whether the States were empowered to issue evidences of debt payable by the State. I answered that, for this purpose, they were as completely sovereign as any State in Europe; that they had a public faith to pledge, and did pledge it. This entire correspondence was published (though you might as well get any administration editor in this country to take hold of a pair of hot tongs as to insert it in his columns), in the face of those who have been shouting in all quarters, that I had a personal agency in attempting to bring about an assumption of State debts by the general government.

It so happened, that, in the latter part of October, the house of Barings issued a circular to foreign houses on this subject, which circular I never saw till I returned to America. In this paper they speak of such an assumption or guaranty; but as it went to foreign houses, I never saw nor heard of it till last December, when I also heard of the proceedings of Mr. Benton. But I here wish again to repeat, that, during the whole time I was in Europe, no English banker or foreign bondholder ever suggested an idea of such an assumption. The first I heard of it was from an American citizen there, and not again till my return to this country. I have said that, owing to the bad news which was constantly received from this country, the pleasure of my visit was much diminished. I will now say, that, during the whole time of my absence, I had the lowest hopes, as to the political state of the country, which I ever indulged. I saw the fatal workings of the experiment, and I saw that nothing wiser or better was in the mind of the administration. I knew that a vast majority of my countrymen were opposed to the existing policy, but I did not see them sufficiently roused, nor had I confidence that they would ever come to that cordial union in relation to any one candidate for the Presidency, which would enable them, as a party, to take the field with any rational hope of success.

Such were the gloomy feelings which possessed my mind when I first learned the result of the Harrisburg Convention. But when I saw a nomination which, though unwelcome at first

to many, I thought the best that could possibly have been made, and learned that it was fast gaining the approbation of all who thought with me; and above all, when I beheld the warm enthusiasm and the heartfelt union which soon animated their ranks and concentrated their movements, I then began to entertain a confidence that the hour of deliverance was at hand, and that my long-suffering country would yet relieve herself from the disastrous condition to which she had been reduced.

I hope, Gentlemen, you will not be alarmed, if I take from my notes one more paper. I will detain you but a few moments in briefly expressing the opinions I entertain in regard to the sub-treasury. It appears to me to be a scheme entirely new to our history, and foreign to our habits, and to be the last of a series of baffled experiments, into which the representatives of the people have been lashed and driven by the continued exercise of executive power, through four mortal sessions of Congress.

The leading argument was This was a plan to keep the not run away with it. Now

I will say a word or two in relation to the system, under the various aspects in which its friends have supported it. What are the arguments in its favor? that of safety to the government. public money where rogues could I think there is a way to prevent that, which would be much more effectual; and that is, not to trust rogues with the keeping of the public money. But as to the notion of vaults better and more secure than those of the banks, is it not the most ridiculous of all humbugs? I do not know in which of the bank vaults around me the receiver-general keeps his funds. If they are in a vault different from that which belongs to the bank, I will venture to say it is no better and no safer. It is said, however, that by this means government is to keep its own money. What does this mean? Who is that government? Who is that individual "I," who is to keep our money in his own pocket? Is not government a mere collection of agencies? Is not every dollar it possesses placed in trust with somebody? It may be put in vaults under a key, but the key is given to somebody to keep. Government is not a person with pockets.

The only question is, whether the government agents under the sub-treasury are any safer than the government agents be