Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

Second Form. —March 28, 1834

"Resolved, That, in taking upon himself the responsibility of removing the deposit of the public money from the Bank of the United States, the President of the United States has assumed the exercise of a power over the treasury of the United States not granted to him by the constitution and laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people."

Third Form. —March 28, 1834

"Resolved, That the President, in the late executive proceedings, in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both."

Having exhibited the original resolution, with its variations, Mr. B. would leave it to others to explain the reasons of such extraordinary metamorphoses. Whether to get rid of the bank association, or to get rid of the impeachment clause, or to conciliate the votes of all who were willing to condemn the President, but could not tell for what, it was not for him to say; but one thing he would venture to say, that the majority who agreed in passing a general resolution, containing a criminal charge against President Jackson, for violating the laws and the constitution, cannot now agree in naming the law or the clause in the constitution violated, or in specifying any act constituting such violation. And here Mr. B. paused, and offered to give way to the gentlemen of the opposition, if they would now undertake to specify any act which President Jackson had done in violation of law or constitution.

3. Unwarranted by the constitution and laws.– Mr. B. said this head explained itself. It needed no development to be understood by the Senate or the country. The President was condemned without the form of a trial; and, therefore, his condemnation was unwarranted by the constitution and laws.

4. Subversive of the rights of defence, which belong to an accused and impeachable officer.– This head, also (Mr. B. said), explained itself. An accused person had a right to be heard before he was condemned; an impeachable officer could not be condemned unheard by the Senate, without subverting all the rights of defence which belong to him, and disqualifying the Senate to act as impartial judges in the event of his being regularly impeached for the same offence. In this case, the House of Representatives, if they confided in the Senate's condemnation, would send up an impeachment; that they had not done so, was proof that they had no confidence in the correctness of our decision.

5. Of evil example.– Nothing, said Mr. B., could he more unjust and illegal in itself, and therefore more evil in example, than to try people without a hearing, and condemn them without defence. In this case, such a trial and such a condemnation was aggravated by the refusal of the Senate, after their sentence was pronounced, to receive the defence of the President, and let it be printed for the inspection of posterity! So that, if this criminating resolution is not expunged, the singular spectacle will go down to posterity, of a condemnation, and a refusal to permit an answer from the condemned person standing recorded on the pages of the same journal! Mr. B. said the Senate must look forward to the time – far ahead, perhaps, but a time which may come – when this body may be filled with disappointed competitors, or personal enemies of the President, or of aspirants to the very office which he holds, and who may not scruple to undertake to cripple him by senatorial condemnations; to attaint him by convictions; to ostracise him by vote; and lest this should happen, and the present condemnation of President Jackson should become the precedent for such an odious proceeding, the evil example should be arrested, should be removed, by expunging the present sentence from the journals of the Senate. And here Mr. B. would avail himself of a voice which had often been heard in the two Houses of Congress, and always with respect and veneration. It was the voice of a wise man, an honest man, a good man, a patriot; one who knew no cause but the cause of his country; and who, a quarter of a century ago, foresaw and described the scenes of this day, and foretold the consequences which must have happened to any other President, under the circumstances in which President Jackson has been placed. He spoke of Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, and of the sentiments which he expressed, in the year 1810, when called upon to give a vote in approbation of Mr. Madison's conduct in dismissing Mr. Jackson, the then British minister to the United States. He opposed the resolution of approbation, because the House had nothing to do with the President in their legislative character, except the passing of laws, calling for information or impeaching; and, looking into the evil consequences of undertaking to judge of the President's conduct, he foretold the exact predicament in which the Senate is now involved, with respect to President Jackson. Mr. B. then read extracts from the speech of Mr. Macon, on the occasion referred to:

"I am opposed to the resolution, not for the reasons which have been offered against it, nor for any which can be drawn from the documents before us, but because I am opposed to addressing the President of the United States upon any subject whatever. We have nothing to do with him, in our legislative character, except the passing of laws, calling on him for information, or to impeach. On the day of the presidential election, we, in common with our fellow-citizens, are to pass on his conduct, and resolutions of this sort will have no weight on that day. It is on this ground solely that I am opposed to adopting any resolution whatever in relation to the Executive conduct. If the national legislature can pass resolutions to approve the conduct of the President, may they not also pass resolutions to censure? And what would be the situation of the country, if we were now discussing a motion to request the President to recall Mr. Jackson, and again to endeavor to negotiate with him?"

6. At a time, and under circumstances, to involve the political rights and pecuniary interests of the people of the United States in serious injury and peculiar danger.– This head of his argument, Mr. B. said, would require a development and detail which he had not deemed necessary at this time, considering what had been said by him at the last session, and what would now be said by others, to give the reasons which he had so briefly touched. But at this point he approached new ground; he entered a new field; he saw an extended horizon of argument and fact expand before him, and it became necessary for him to expand with his subject. The condemnation of the President is indissolubly connected with the cause of the bank! The first form of the resolution exhibited the connection; the second form did also; every speech did the same; for every speech in condemnation of the President was in justification of the bank; every speech in justification of the President was in condemnation of the bank; and thus the two objects were identical and reciprocal. The attack of one was a defence of the other; the defence of one was the attack of the other. And thus it continued for the long protracted period of nearly one hundred days – from December 26th, 1833, to March 28th, 1834 – when, for reasons not explained to the Senate, upon a private consultation among the friends of the resolution, the mover of it came forward to the Secretary's table, and voluntarily made the alterations which cut the connection between the bank and the resolution! but it stood upon the record, by striking out every thing relative to the dismissal of Mr. Duane, the appointment of Mr. Taney, and the removal of the deposits. But the alteration was made in the record only. The connection still subsisted in fact, now lives in memory, and shall live in history. Yes, sir, said Mr. B., addressing himself to the President of the Senate; yes, sir, the condemnation of the President was in indissolubly connected with the cause of the bank, with the removal of the deposits, the renewal of the charter, the restoration of the deposits, the vindication of Mr. Duane, the rejection of Mr. Taney, the fate of elections, the overthrow of Jackson's administration, the fall of prices, the distress meetings, the distress memorials, the distress committees, the distress speeches; and all the long list of hapless measures which astonished, terrified, afflicted, and deeply injured the country during the long and agonized protraction of the famous panic session. All these things are connected, said Mr. B.; and it became his duty to place a part of the proof which established the connection before the Senate and the people.

Mr. B. then took up the appendix to the report made by the Senate's Committee of Finance on the bank, commonly called Mr. Tyler's report, and read extracts from instructions sent to two-and-twenty tranches of the bank, contemporaneously with the progress of the debate on the criminating resolutions; the object and effect of which, and their connection with the debate in the Senate, would be quickly seen. Premising that the bank had dispatched orders to the same branches, in the month of August, and had curtailed $4,066,000, and again, in the month of October, to curtail $5,825,000, and to increase the rates of their exchange, and had expressly stated in a circular, on the 17th of that month, that this reduction would place the branches in a position of entire security, Mr. B. invoked attention to the shower of orders, and their dates, which he was about to read. He read passages from page 77 to 82, inclusive. They were all extracts of letters from the president of the bank in person, to the presidents of the branches; for Mr. B. said it must be remembered, as one of the peculiar features of the bank attack upon the country last winter, that the whole business of conducting this curtailment, and raising exchanges, and doing whatever it pleased with the commerce, currency, and business of the country, was withdrawn from the board of directors, and confided to one of those convenient committees of which the president is ex officio member and creator; and which, in this case, was expressly absolved from reporting to the board of directors! The letters, then, are all from Nicholas Biddle, president, and not from Samuel Jaudon, cashier, and are addressed direct to the presidents of the branch banks.

When Mr. B. had finished reading these extracts, he turned to the report made by the senator from Virginia, who sat on his right [Mr. Tyler], where all that was said about these new measures of hostility, and the propriety of the bank's conduct in this third curtailment, and in its increase upon rates of exchange, was compressed into twenty lines, and the wisdom or necessity of them were left to be pronounced upon by the judgment of the Senate. Mr. B. would read those twenty lines of that report:

"The whole amount of reduction ordered by the above proceedings (curtailment ordered on 8th and 17th of October) was $5,825,906. The same table, No. 4, exhibits the fact, that on the 23d of January a further reduction was ordered to the amount of $3,320,000. This was communicated to the offices in letters from the president, stating 'that the present situation of the bank, and the new measures of hostility which are understood to be in contemplation, make it expedient to place the institution beyond the reach of all danger; for this purpose, I am directed to instruct your office to conduct its business on the following footing' (appendix, No. 9, copies of letters). The offices of Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington, St. Louis, Nashville, and Natchez, were further directed to confine themselves to ninety days' bills on Baltimore, and the cities north of it, of which they were allowed to purchase any amount their means would justify: and to bills on New Orleans, which they were to take only in payment of pre-existing debts to the bank and its offices; while the office at New Orleans was directed to abstain from drawing on the Western offices, and to make its purchases mainly on the North Atlantic cities. The committee has thus given a full, and somewhat elaborate detail of the various measures resorted to by the bank, from the 13th of August, 1833; of their wisdom and necessity the Senate will best be able to pronounce a correct judgment."

This, Mr. B. said, was the meagre and stinted manner in which the report treated a transaction which he would show to be the most cold-blooded, calculating, and diabolical, which the annals of any country on this side of Asia could exhibit.

[Mr. Tyler here said there were two pages on this subject to be found at another part of the report, and opened the report at the place for Mr. B.]

Mr. B. said the two pages contained but few allusions to this subject, and nothing to add to or vary what was contained in the twenty lines he had read. He looked upon it as a great omission in the report; the more so as the committee had been expressly commanded to report upon the curtailments and the conduct of the bank in the business of internal exchange. He had hoped to have had searching inquiries and detailed statements of facts on these vital points. He looked to the senator from Virginia [Mr. Tyler] for these inquiries and statements. He wished him to show, by the manner in which he would drag to light, and expose to view, the vast crimes of the bank, that the Old Dominion was still the mother of the Gracchi; that the Old lady was not yet forty-five; that she could breed sons! Sons to emulate the fame of the Scipios. But he was disappointed. The report was dumb, silent, speechless, upon the operations of the bank during its terrible campaign of panic and pressure upon the American people. And now he would pay one instalment of the speech which had been promised some time ago on the subject of this report; for there was part of that speech which was strictly applicable and appropriate to the head he was now discussing.

Mr. B. then addressed himself to the senator from Virginia, who sat on his right [Mr. Tyler], and requested him to supply an omission in his report, and to inform what were those new measures of hostility alluded to in the two-and-twenty letters of instruction of the bank, and repeated in the report, and which were made the pretext for this third curtailment, and these new and extraordinary restrictions and impositions upon the purchase of bills of exchange.

[Mr. Tyler answered that it was the expected prohibition upon the receivability of the branch bank drafts in payment of the federal revenue.]

Mr. B. resumed: The senator is right. These drafts are mentioned in one of the circular letters, and but one of them, as the new measure understood to be in contemplation, and which understanding had been made the pretext for scourging the country. He (Mr. B.) was incapable of a theatrical artifice – a stage trick – in a grave debate. He had no question but that the senator could answer his question, and he knew that he had answered it truly; but he wanted his testimony, his evidence, against the bank; he wanted proof to tie the bank down to this answer, to this pretext, to this thin disguise for her conduct in scourging the country. The answer is now given; the proof is adduced; and the apprehended prohibition of the receivability of the branch drafts stands both as the pretext and the sole pretext for the pressure commenced in January, the doubling the rates of exchange, breaking up exchanges between the five Western branch banks, and concentrating the collection of bills of exchange upon four great commercial cities.

Mr. B. then took six positions, which he enumerated, and undertook to demonstrate to be true. They were:

1. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that there were any new measures in contemplation, or action, to destroy the bank.

2. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that the President harbored hostile and revengeful designs against the existence of the bank.

3. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that there was any necessity for this third curtailment, which was ordered the last of January.

4. That there was no excuse, justification, or apology for the conduct of the bank in relation to domestic exchange, in doubling its rates, breaking it up between the five Western branches turning the collection of bills upon the principal commercial cities, and forbidding the branch at New Orleans to purchase bills on any part of the West.

5. That this curtailment and these exchange regulations in January were political and revolutionary, and connected themselves with the resolution in the Senate for the condemnation of President Jackson.

6. That the distress of the country was occasioned by the Bank of the United States and the Senate of the United States, and not by the removal of the deposits.

Having stated his positions, Mr. B. proceeded to demonstrate them.

1. As to the new measures to destroy the bank, Mr. B. said there were no such measures. The one indicated, that of stopping the receipt of the branch bank drafts in payments to the United States, existed nowhere but in the two-and-twenty letters of instruction of the president of the bank. There is not even an allegation that the measure existed; the language is "in contemplation" – "understood to be in contemplation," and upon this flimsy pretext of an understanding of something in contemplation, and which something never took place, a set of ruthless orders are sent out to every quarter of the Union to make a pressure for money, and to embarrass the domestic exchanges of the Union. Three days would have brought an answer from Washington to Philadelphia – from the Treasury to the bank; and let it be known that there was no intention to stop the receipt of these drafts at that time. But it would seem that the bank did not recognize the legitimacy of Mr. Taney's appointment! and therefore would not condescend to correspond with him as Secretary of the Treasury! But time gave the answer, even if the bank would not inquire at the Treasury. Day after day, week after week, month after month passed off, and these redoubtable new measures never made their appearance. Why not then stop the curtailment, and restore the exchanges to their former footing? February, March, April, May, June, five months, one hundred and fifty days, all passed away; the new measures never came; and yet the pressure upon the country was kept up; the two-and-twenty orders were continued in force. What can be thought of an institution which, being armed by law with power over the moneyed system of the whole country, should proceed to exercise that power to distress that country for money upon an understanding that something was in contemplation; and never inquire if its understanding was correct, nor cease its operations, when each successive day, for one hundred and fifty days, proved to it that no such thing was in contemplation? At last, on the 27th of June, when the pressure is to be relaxed, it is done upon another ground; not upon the ground that the new measures had never taken effect, but because Congress was about to rise without having done any thing for the bank. Here is a clear confession that the allegation of new measures was a mere pretext; and that the motive was to operate upon Congress, and force a restoration of the deposits, and renewal of the charter.

Mr. B. said he knew all about these drafts. The President always condemned their legality, and was for stopping the receipt of them. Mr. Taney, when Attorney General, condemned them in 1831. Mr. B. had applied to Mr. McLane, in 1832, to stop them; but he came to no decision. He applied to Mr. Duane, by letter, as soon as he came into the Treasury; but got no answer. He applied to Mr. Taney as soon as he arrived at Washington in the fall of 1833; and Mr. Taney decided that he would not stop them until the moneyed concerns of the country had recovered their tranquillity and prosperity, lest the bank should make it the pretext of new attempts to distress the country; and thus the very thing which Mr. Taney refused to do, lest it should be made a pretext for oppression, was falsely converted into a pretext to do what he was determined they should have no pretext for doing.

But Mr. B. took higher ground still; it was this: that, even if the receipt for the drafts had been stopped in January or February, there would have been no necessity on that account for curtailing debts and embarrassing exchanges. This ground he sustained by showing – 1st. That the bank had at that time two millions of dollars in Europe, lying idle, as a fund to draw bills of exchange upon; and the mere sale of bills on this sum would have met every demand which the rejection of the drafts could have thrown upon it. 2. That it sent the money it raised by this curtailment to Europe, to the amount of three and a half millions; and thereby showed that it was not collected to meet any demand at home. 3d. That the bank had at that time (January, 1834) the sum of $4,230,509 of public money in hand, and therefore had United States money enough in possession to balance any injury from rejection of drafts. 4th. That the bank had notes enough on hand to supply the place of all the drafts, even if they were all driven in. 5th. That it had stopped the receipt of these branch drafts itself at the branches, except each for its own in November, 1833, and was compelled to resume their receipt by the energetic and just conduct of Mr. Taney, in giving transfer drafts to be used against the branches which would not honour the notes and drafts of the other branches. Here Mr. B. turned upon Mr. Tyler's report, and severely arraigned it for alleging that the bank always honored its paper at every point, and furnishing a supply of negative testimony to prove that assertion, when there was a large mass of positive testimony, the disinterested evidence of numerous respectable persons, to prove the contrary, and which the committee had not noticed.

Finally, M. B. had recourse to Mr. Biddle's own testimony to annihilate his (Mr. Biddle's) affected alarm for the destruction of the bank, and the injury to the country from the repulse of these famous branch drafts from revenue payments. It was in a letter of Mr. Biddle to Mr. Woodbury in the fall of 1834, when the receipt of these drafts was actually stopped, and in the order which was issued to the branches to continue to issue them as usual. Mr. B. read a passage from this letter to show that the receipt of these drafts was always a mere Treasury arrangement, in which the bank felt no interest; that the refusal to receive them was an object at all times of perfect indifference to the bank, and would not have been even noticed by it, if Mr. Woodbury had not sent him a copy of his circular.

Mr. B. invoked the attention of the Senate upon the fatal contradictions which this letter of November, and these instructions of January, 1834, exhibit. In January, the mere understanding of a design in contemplation to exclude these drafts from revenue payments, is a danger of such alarming magnitude, an invasion of the rights of the bank in such a flagrant manner, a proof of such vindictive determination to prostrate, sacrifice, and ruin the institution, that the entire continent must be laid under contribution to raise money to enable the institution to stand the shock! November of the same year when the order for the rejection actually comes, then the same measure is declared to be one of the utmost indifference to the bank; in which it never felt any interest; which the Treasury adopted for its own convenience; which was always under the exclusive control of the Treasury; about which the bank had never expressed a wish; of which it would have taken no notice if the Secretary had not sent them a circular; and the expediency of which it was not intended to question in the remotest degree! Having pointed out these fatal contradictions, Mr. B. said it was a case in which the emphatic ejaculation might well be repeated: Oh! that mine enemy would write a book!

To put the seal of the bank's contempt on the order prohibiting the receipt of these drafts, to show its disregard of law, and its ability to sustain its drafts upon its own resources, and without the advantage of government receivability, Mr. B. read the order which the president of the bank addressed to all the branches on the receipt of the circular which gave him information of the rejection of these drafts. It was in these words: "This will make no alteration whatever in your practice, with regard to issuing or paying these drafts, which you will continue as heretofore." What a pity, said Mr. B., that the president of the bank could not have thought of issuing such an order as this in January, instead of sending forth the mandate for curtailing debts, embarrassing exchange, levying three millions and a half, alarming the country with the cry of danger, and exhibiting President Jackson as a vindictive tyrant, intent upon the ruin of the bank!