bodies than in individuals, combined with a spirit of patriotism, may prevent its completion.

In speaking of the late executive documents, Mr. Wilde holds this appropriate language:

"The style and spirit of all these documents, from the veto message to the report of the committee, are in my judgment highly exceptionable. They have a general similitude. There is, throughout, too little calm reason; too little of sober and enlightened experience; and too much appeal to the more ignoble passions. Instead of clear-sighted, deep-searching and far-reaching sagacity, we have the incarnate spirit which practices on popular delusions, and has been the ruin of all republics. The Demus of the old Greek comedy, the Agrarians of Rome, the disciples of Spence in England, and the Jacobins in France, held similar language. It is the first time, however, I believe, that we have seen the chief executive magistrate of a free and intelligent people made "to talk and act Jack Cade."

Mr. Webster, too, has adverted to this topic with equal eloquence, force and truth.

66

'Sir, there is one other subject on which I wish to raise my voice. There is a topic, which I perceive is become the general war cry of party, on which I take the liberty to warn the country against delusion. Sir, the cry is to be raised, that this is a question between the poor and the rich. I know, Sir, it has been proclaimed that one thing was certain-that there was always a hatred from the poor to the rich; and that this hatred would support the late measures, and the putting down of the Bank. Sir, I will not be silent at the threatening of such a detestable fraud on public opinion. If but one man, or ten men in the nation, will hear my voice, I would still warn them against this attempted imposition.

"Mr. President, this is an eventful moment. On the great questions which occupy us, we all look for some decisive movement of public opinion. As I wish that movement to be free, intelligent, and unbiassed-the true manifestation of the public will-I desire to prepare the country for another assault, which I per ceive is about to be made on popular prejudice—another attempt to obscure all distinct views of the public good-to overwhelm all patriotism, and all enlightened self-interest, by loud cries against false danger, and by exciting the passions of one class against another. I am not mistaken in the omen-I see the magazine whence the weapons of this warfare are to be drawn. I already hear the din of the hammering of arms, preparatory to the combat. They may be such arms, perhaps, as reason, and justice, and honest patriotism cannot resist. Every effort at resistance, it is possible, may be feeble and powerless; but, for one, I shall make an effort-an effort to be begun now, and to be carried on and continued, with untiring zeal, till the end of the contest comes.

"Sir, I see in those vehicles which carry to the people sentiments from high places, plain declarations that the present controversy is but a strife between one part of the community and another. I hear it boasted as the unfailing security, the solid ground never to be shaken, on which recent measures rest, that the poor naturally hate the rich. I know, that under the shade of the roofs of the Capitol, within the last twenty-four hours-among men sent here to devise means for the public safety and the public good-it has been vaunted forth, as matter of boast and triumph, that one cause existed, powerful enough to support every thing, and to defend every thing, and that was-the natural hatred of the poor to the rich.

"Sir, I pronounce the author of such sentiments to be guilty of attempting a detestable fraud on the community; a double fraud; a fraud which is to cheat men out of their property, and out of the earnings of their labour, by first cheating them out of their understandings.

"The natural hatred of the poor to the rich! Sir, it shall not be till the last moment of my existence-it shall be only when I am drawn to the verge of

oblivion-when I shall cease to have respect or affection for any thing on earth-that I will believe the people of the United States capable of being effectually deluded, cajoled, and driven about in herds, by such abominable frauds as this. If they shall sink to that point-if they so far cease to be men-thinking men, intelligent men-as to yield to such pretences and such clamor, they will be slaves already; slaves to their own passions-slaves to the frand and knavery of pretended friends. They will deserve to be blotted out of all the records of freedom; they ought not to dishonour the cause of self-government, by attempting any longer to exercise it; they ought to keep their unworthy hands entirely off from the cause of republican liberty, if they are capable of being the victims of artifices so shallow-of tricks so stale, so threadbare, so often practised, so much worn out, on serfs and slaves.

"The natural hatred of the poor against the rich!" "The danger of a monied aristocracy!' A power as great and dangerous as that resisted by the Revolution!" A call to a new Declaration of Independence!'

6

"Sir, I admonish the people against the objects of outcries like these. I admonish every industrious laborer in the country to be on his guard against such delusion. I tell him the attempt is to play off his passions against his interests, and to prevail on him, in the name of liberty, to destroy all the fruits of liberty; in the name of patriotism, to injure and afflict his country; and, in the name of his own independence, to destroy that very independence, and make him a beggar and a slave. Has he a dollar? He is advised to do that which will destroy half its value. Has he hands to labour? Let him rather fold them and set still than be pushed on, by fraud and artifice, to support measures which will render his labour useless and hopeless."

Let us examine, for a single instant, into the nature of banking institutions, which faction now so much decries, but which are dangerous, only, in their excess, and which, with the power of steam locomotives, have carried us forward in an unparalleled progress of prosperity? Are they "grants of monopolies" and exclusive privileges as they have been characterized? The answer is most satisfactorily furnished by Mr. Cushing of Newburyport, in an able speech before the House of Representatives of Massachusetts.

"Sir, in the face of this partizan denunciation of the property of the country, I undertake to say, that, if any fact in political science be susceptible of demonstration, the inseparable connection of capital and of labour is that fact. Take the example of our banks, which are pure monied institutions. Who are chiefly interested in their welfare? Is it the rich? Is it, as we have heard so emphatically and confidently asserted here to-day, the rich capitalists? Do they employ the banks as engines for grinding the poor,' as it has been affirmed this morning? By no means. Never was there a wilder delusion. Desirous, some time ago, of understanding the precise fact, I had recourse, in the first place, to the books of the Merchants' Bank of Newburyport, to which I had right of access in capacity of director. Personally knowing every stockholder, his condition and his pursuits, I went carefully over the dividend-book of that bank, and I found that, of its six thousand shares, 3923 belonged to women and to public institutions, 1035 to working mechanics, and only 1042 to any description of capitalists. Struck with this result, I made a similar examination of the stock-book of the Mechanics' Bank in the same town; and of the two thousand shares into which its capital is diL

vided, 946 belong to women and public institutions, 593 to working mechanics, and only 461 to capitalists. Not content with this, I pursued my inquiries in different banks of the city of Boston, and I found the general fact substantially the same, with this qualification; namely, that although in banks newly got up, a larger proportion of the stock occasionally belonged to capitalists, yet in a few years it all took the ordinary course of getting into the hands of women, public institutions and thrifty mechanics. I speak advisedly in this matter, on the strength of carefully prepared abstracts, of which I give a single example taken at mere hazard. Thus, the stock-book of the bank I have in mind exhibits this result: of ten thousand shares, 2834 are held by women, trustees and guardians; 2247 by public institutions; and only 1551 by capitalists; and the remaining 3360 by men of the industrious classes.

"The reason of this fact is plain enough to those who will use their eyes. Capitalists do not choose to pay to the State an excise upon their circulating cash capital; to pay the rent of a banking house; to pay the salaries of presidents and cashiers, for doing what they can do as well in their own persons; to be restricted to six per cent interest for their money; and to have their affairs scrutinized every day of the year by the public authorities of the State. No, they prefer to keep their money under their own controul, and to use it in buying blue books or cashing notes at an extra interest of one per cent per month. It is the mechanic, the solitary female, the minor child, the public institution of charity, which need, and find safe, investments for their money in banks; and their stock is not the property of great city merchants rolling in wealth; but is diffused in small sums all over the Commonwealth."

We might prosecute this matter much farther, and show that the business of the banks, like their stocks, belongs to the industry and enterprize of the country, not to capitalists; that labour and capital are inseparable in their utility; the latter, without the former, being as useless in the hands of the owner, as the precious metals in their primitive beds.

II. The second reason, in fact, alleged by the Secretary for removing the deposits, is the unwarrantable reduction by the Bank of its discounts, and consequent oppression of commerce. The specification is, that between 1st December 1832 and 2d August 1833, the Bank increased its discounts more than two and a-half millions of dollars; and, so far from preparing to wind up its affairs, although the election of the President had sealed its death-warrant, thus strove to compel the country to submit to the renewal of the charter, under the penalty of a currency suddenly deranged: that on the appointment of an agent to seek depositaries, and when the demands upon the traders by government were unusually large, by reason of the conjunction of the payments of the bond and cash duties, the Bank changed its course; and between the 2d of August and the 2d of October, curtailed its discounts four millions, whilst the public deposites were increased two and a half millions; that this reduction compelled the State banks also to curtail, and produced complaints of pressure from every quarter; so that, if the public moneys had continued to be deposited in the Bank

of the United States for two months longer, and the same system had been followed, a wide spread scene of bankruptcy and ruin must have ensued; that these causes left no alternative to the Secretary of the Treasury, but to remove the deposites, when, under other circumstances, he would have been disposed to direct the removal to take effect, at a distant day, so as to give Congress an opportunity of prescribing, in the mean time, the places of deposite, and of regulating the securities proper to be taken.

Now, will it be credited, that these allegations, said to be productive of such important results, are wholly untrue; that, consequently, the removal of the deposites was wholly unwarranted by them,-and that, supposing them true, the reason ascribed for hastening the removal is absolutely false. We use strong expressions; but none other befits the occasion.

1. The Bank of the United States did not, between the 2d of August and the 2d of October, voluntarily, curtail its discounts a single dollar.

2. Within that period, the State banks did not curtail their discounts.

3. The removal of the deposites, on the 1st of October, or sooner if practicable, was definitely fixed, on the 18th of September, and could not depend upon events subsequent to that day, which could not he known; and the design to prevent the action of Congress upon the question of removal, was, previously, distinctly avowed and invariably adhered to.

1. Our first asseveration is incontrovertibly proven, by the following exposition of the Bank operations, extracted from the · Bank Report of 8th April, 1834.

To provide against the effects of the President's hostility against the Bank, demonstrated during the summer of 1833, the Bank resolved on the 13th August: 1. That, until further order, the amount of "bills discounted" should not be increased at the Bank and the several offices; 2. That bills of exchange, purchased, except at the five western offices, should not have more than ninety days to run; 3. That, the five western offices be instructed to purchase no bills of exchange except those payable in the Atlantic cities, nor having more than ninety days to run, or those which may be received in payment of existing debts to the Bank and the offices, and, then, not having more than four months to run.

This was the only measure deemed necessary by the Board, which was reluctant to diminish its business, or to distress the country. And the measure was merely followed out, by resolutions of the 1st of October:-1. To extend the third resolution of 13th August, from the five western to other distant offices. 2. That, all the other offices should likewise purchase

bills, only, on the Atlantic cities, New Orleans and Mobile; not having more than ninety days to run. 3. To increase the rates of buying bills of exchange. 4. To restrict the receipts of the State bank notes to those in the same places with the offices. 5. To collect the debts due by distant State banks.

So that, up to the 1st of October, 1833, no order had been given to curtail the loans. But all who are familiar with our commerce, know, that during the summer, in the interval between the old and the new crop, commercial operations, and the loans founded on them, subside. This, the Bank shows by a tabular view for the ten successive years.

The Secretary ought to have seen, from the statements furnished to him, that there were no "curtailments," and that the "oppressive system," which he stigmatized, was a voluntary reduction by the maturity of bills of exchange, drawn at New Orleans for

Of bills drawn at other places,

And the voluntary diminution of local loans by one house,

$2,037,099 53

1,018,215 90

1,010,830 72

4,066,146 15

On the 1st of October, the deposites were withdrawn. On the 8th the Bank directed, "that the committee on the of fices be authorized to direct such gradual reduction in the amount and the time of the loans, at the respective offices, as may, in their judgment, be made, without inconvenience to the customers of the Bank, or the community." This authority has been executed in such a way as to accomplish its object with the least pressure upon the community; and the Bank sum up their operations, in the following manner:

1st. That the Bank never directed any curtailment of its loans until the actual removal of the deposites.

2d. That the only actual reduction of loans took place from the 1st of October to the 1st of December, when the loans were diminished,

While at the same time, the public and private deposits were reduced, 3d. That from the 1st of December, 1833, to the 1st of April, 1834, the loans have not been reduced, but, on the contrary, have actually been increasing, and were greater on the 1st of April, 1834, than on the 1st of October, 1833, by

While, during that same period, the public deposits had decreased no less than

$5,641,098 26

5,887,864 63

353,712 95

2,239,393 89

While the public deposits had been re

4th. That the total reduction of loans from the 1st of October to the 1st of April, was

5,057,527 22

duced

Private deposits,

Making an aggregate of