Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

"These, Mr. President, are the chief of the exclusive privileges which constitute the monopoly of the Bank of the United States. I have spoken of them, not as they deserved, but as my abilities have permitted. I have shown you that they are not only evil in themselves, but copied from an evil example. I now wish to show you that the government from which we have made this copy has condemned the original; and, after showing this fact, I think I shall be able to appeal, with sensible effect, to all liberal minds, to follow the enlightened example of Great Britain, in getting rid of a dangerous and invidious institution, after having followed her pernicious example in assuming it. For this purpose, I will have recourse to proof, and will read from British state papers of 1826. I will read extracts from the correspondence between Earl Liverpool, first Lord of the Treasury, and Mr. Robinson, Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the one side, and the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England on the other; the subject being the renewal, or rather non-renewal, of the charter of the Bank of England.

Communications from the First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. – Extracts

"'The failures which have occurred in England, unaccompanied as they have been by the same occurrences in Scotland, tend to prove that there must have been an unsolid and delusive system of banking in one part of Great Britain, and a solid and substantial one in the other. * * * * In Scotland, there are not more than thirty banks (three chartered), and these banks have stood firm amidst all the convulsions of the money market in England, and amidst all the distresses to which the manufacturing and agricultural interests in Scotland, as well as in England, have occasionally been subject. Banks of this description must necessarily be conducted upon the generally understood and approved principles of banking. * * * * The Bank of England may, perhaps, propose, as they did upon a former occasion, the extension of the term of their exclusive privilege, as to the metropolis and its neighborhood, beyond the year 1833, as the price of this concession [immediate surrender of exclusive privileges]. It would be very much to be regretted that they should require any such condition. * * * * It is obvious, from what passed before, that Parliament will never agree to it. * * * * Such privileges are out of fashion; and what expectation can the bank, under present circumstances, entertain that theirs will be renewed?' —Jan. 13.

Answer of the Court of Directors. – Extract

"'Under the uncertainty in which the Court of Directors find themselves with respect to the death of the bank, and the effect which they may have on the interests of the bank, this court cannot feel themselves justified in recommending to the proprietors to give up the privilege which they now enjoy, sanctioned and confirmed as it is by the solemn acts of the legislature.' —Jan. 20.

Second communication from the Ministers. – Extract

"'The First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer have considered the answer of the bank of the 20th instant. They cannot but regret that the Court of Directors should have declined to recommend to the Court of Proprietors the consideration of the paper delivered by the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Governor and Deputy Governor on the 13th instant. The statement contained in that paper appears to the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer so full and explicit on all the points to which it related, that they have nothing further to add, although they would have been, and still are, ready to answer, as far as possible, any specific questions which might be put, for the purpose of removing the uncertainty in which the court of directors state themselves to be with respect to the details of the plan suggested in that paper.' —Jan. 23.

Second answer of the Bank. – Extract

"'The Committee of Treasury [bank] having taken into consideration the paper received from the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, dated January 23d, and finding that His Majesty's ministers persevere in their desire to propose to restrict immediately the exclusive privilege of the bank, as to the number of partners engaged in banking to a certain distance from the metropolis, and also continue to be of opinion that Parliament would not consent to renew the privilege at the expiration of the period of their present charter; finding, also, that the proposal by the bank of establishing branch banks is deemed by His Majesty's ministers inadequate to the wants of the country, are of opinion that it would be desirable for this corporation to propose, as a basis, the act of 6th of George the Fourth, which states, the conditions on which the Bank of Ireland relinquished its exclusive privileges; this corporation waiving the question of a prolongation of time, although the committee [of the bank] cannot agree in the opinion of the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that they are not making a considerable sacrifice, adverting especially to the Bank of Ireland remaining in possession of that privilege five years longer than the Bank of England.' —January 25.

"Here, Mr. President, is the end of all the exclusive privileges and odious monopoly of the Bank of England. That ancient and powerful institution, so long the haughty tyrant of the moneyed world – so long the subsidizer of kings and ministers – so long the fruitful mother of national debt and useless wars – so long the prolific manufactory of nabobs and paupers – so long the dread dictator of its own terms to parliament – now droops the conquered wing, lowers its proud crest, and quails under the blows if its late despised assailants. It first puts on a courageous air, and takes a stand upon privileges sanctioned by time, and confirmed by solemn acts. Seeing that the ministers could have no more to say to men who would talk of privileges in the nineteenth century, and being reminded that parliament was inexorable, the bully suddenly degenerates into the craven, and, from showing fight, calls for quarter. The directors condescend to beg for the smallest remnant of their former power, for five years only; for the city of London even; and offer to send branches into all quarters. Denied at every point, the subdued tyrant acquiesces in his fate; announces his submission to the spirit and intelligence of the age; and quietly sinks down into the humble, but safe and useful condition of a Scottish provincial bank.

"And here it is profitable to pause; to look back, and see by what means this ancient and powerful institution – this Babylon of the banking world – was so suddenly and so totally prostrated. Who did it? And with what weapons? Sir, it was done by that power which is now regulating the affairs of the civilized world. It was done by the power of public opinion, invoked by the working members of the British parliament. It was done by Sir Henry Parnell, who led the attack upon the Wellington ministry, on the night of the 15th of November; by Sir William Pulteney, Mr. Grenfell, Mr. Hume, Mr. Edward Ellice, and others, the working members of the House of Commons, such as had, a few years before, overthrown the gigantic oppressions of the salt tax. These are the men who have overthrown the Bank of England. They began the attack in 1824, under the discouraging cry of too soon, too soon – for the charter had then nine years to run! and ended with showing that they had began just soon enough. They began with the ministers in their front, on the side of the bank, and ended with having them on their own side, and making them co-operators in the attack, and the instruments and inflicters of the fatal and final blow. But let us do justice to these ministers. Though wrong in the beginning, they were right in the end; though monarchists, they behaved like republicans. They were not Polignacs. They yielded to the intelligence of the age; they yielded to the spirit which proscribes monopolies and privileges, and in their correspondence with the bank directors, spoke truth and reason and asserted liberal principles, with a point and power which quickly put an end to dangerous and obsolete pretensions. They told the bank the mortifying truths, that its system was unsolid and delusive – that its privileges and monopoly were out of fashion – that they could not be prolonged for five years even – nor suffered to exist in London alone; and, what was still more cutting, that the banks of Scotland, which had no monopoly, no privilege, no connection with the government, which paid interest on deposits, and whose stockholders were responsible to the amount of their shares – were the solid and substantial banks, which alone the public interest could hereafter recognize. They did their business, when they undertook it, like true men; and, in the single phrase, 'out of fashion,' achieved the most powerful combination of solid argument and contemptuous sarcasm, that ever was compressed into three words. It is a phrase of electrical power over the senses and passions. It throws back the mind to the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts – the termagant Elizabeth and the pedagogue James – and rouses within us all the shame and rage we have been accustomed to feel at the view of the scandalous sales of privileges and monopolies which were the disgrace and oppression of these wretched times. Out of fashion! Yes; even in England, the land of their early birth, and late protection. And shall they remain in fashion here? Shall republicanism continue to wear, in America, the antique costume which the doughty champions of antiquated fashion have been compelled to doff in England? Shall English lords and ladies continue to find, in the Bank of the United States, the unjust and odious privileges which they can no longer find in the Bank of England? Shall the copy survive here, after the original has been destroyed there? Shall the young whelp triumph in America, after the old lion has been throttled and strangled in England? No! never! The thing is impossible! The Bank of the United States dies, as the Bank of England dies, in all its odious points, upon the limitation of its charter; and the only circumstance of regret is, that the generous deliverance is to take effect two years earlier in the British monarchy than in the American republic. It came to us of war – it will go away with peace. It was born of the war of 1812 – it will die in the long peace with which the world is blessed. The arguments on which it was created will no longer apply. Times have changed; and the policy of the republic changes with the times. The war made the bank; peace will unmake it. The baleful planet of fire, and blood, and every human woe, did bring that pestilence upon us; the benignant star of peace shall chase it away."

This speech was not answered. Confident in its strength, and insolent in its nature, the great moneyed power had adopted a system in which she persevered, until hard knocks drove her out of it: it was to have an anti-bank speech treated with the contempt of silence in the House, and caricatured and belittled in the newspapers; and according to this system my speech was treated. The instant it was delivered, Mr. Webster called for the vote, and to be taken by yeas and nays, which was done; and resulted differently from what was expected – a strong vote against the bank – 20 to 23; enough to excite uneasiness, but not enough to pass the resolution and legitimate a debate on the subject. The debate stopped with the single speech; but it was a speech to be read by the people – the masses – the millions; and was conceived and delivered for that purpose; and was read by them; and has been complimented since, as having crippled the bank, and given it the wound of which it afterwards died; but not within the year and a day which would make the slayer responsible for the homicide. The list of yeas and nays was also favorable to the effect of the speech. Though not a party vote, it was sufficiently so to show how it stood – the mass of the democracy against the bank – the mass of the anti-democrats against it. The names were: —

"Yeas. – Messrs. Barnard, Benton, Bibb, Brown, Dickerson, Dudley, Forsyth, Grundy, Hayne, Iredell, King, McKinley, Poindexter, Sanford, Smith of S. C., Tazewell, Troup, Tyler, White, Woodbury – 20.

"Nays. – Messrs. Barton, Bell, Burnet, Chase, Clayton, Root, Frelinghuysen, Holmes, Hendricks, Johnston, Knight, Livingston, Marks, Noble, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Seymour, Silsbee, Smith of Md., Sprague, Webster, Willey – 23."

CHAPTER LVII.

ERROR OF DE TOCQUEVILLE, IN RELATION TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

I have had occasion several times to notice the errors of Monsieur de Tocqueville, in his work upon American democracy. That work is authority in Europe, where it has appeared in several languages; and is sought by some to be made authority here, where it has been translated into English, and published with notes, and a preface to recommend it. It was written with a view to enlighten European opinion in relation to democratic government, and evidently with a candid intent; but abounds with errors to the prejudice of that form of government, which must do it great mischief, both at home and abroad, if not corrected. A fundamental error of this kind – one which goes to the root of representative government, occurs in chapter 8 of his work, where he finds a great difference in the members comprising the two Houses of Congress, attributing an immense superiority to the Senate, and discovering the cause of the difference in the different modes of electing the members – the popular elections of the House, and the legislative elections of the Senate. He says: —

"On entering the House of Representatives at Washington, one is struck with the vulgar demeanor of that great assembly. The eye frequently does not discover a man of celebrity within its walls. Its members are almost all obscure individuals, whose names present no associations to the mind; they are mostly village lawyers, men in trade, or even persons belonging to the lower classes of society. In a country in which education is very general, it is said that the representatives of the people do not always know how to write correctly. At a few yards' distance from this spot is the door of the Senate, which contains within a small space a large proportion of the celebrated men in America. Scarcely an individual is to be found in it, who does not recall this idea of an active and illustrious career. The Senate is composed of eloquent advocates, distinguished generals, wise magistrates, and statesmen of note, whose language would at all times do honor to the most remarkable parliamentary debates of Europe. What, then, is the cause of this strange contrast? and why are the most able citizens to be found in one assembly rather than in the other? Why is the former body remarkable for its vulgarity, and its poverty of talent, whilst the latter seems to enjoy a monopoly of intelligence and of sound judgment? Both of these assemblies emanate from the people. From what cause, then, does so startling a difference arise? The only reason which appears to me adequately to account for it is, that the House of Representatives is elected by the populace directly, and that of the Senate is elected by an indirect application of universal suffrage; but this transmission of the popular authority through an assembly of chosen men operates an important change in it, by refining its discretion and improving the forms which it adopts. Men who are chosen in this manner, accurately represent the majority of the nation which governs them; but they represent the elevated thoughts which are current in the community, the generous propensities which prompt its nobler actions, rather than the petty passions which disturb, or the vices which disgrace it. The time may be already anticipated at which the American republics will be obliged to introduce the plan of election by an elected body more frequently into their system of representation, or they will incur no small risk of perishing miserably among the shoals of democracy." —Chapter 8.

The whole tenor of these paragraphs is to disparage the democracy – to disparage democratic government – to attack fundamentally the principle of popular election itself. They disqualify the people for self-government, hold them to be incapable of exercising the elective franchise, and predict the downfall of our republican system, if that franchise is not still further restricted, and the popular vote – the vote of the people – reduced to the subaltern choice of persons to vote for them. These are profound errors on the part of Mons. de Tocqueville, which require to be exposed and corrected; and the correction of which comes within the scope of this work, intended to show the capacity of the people for self-government, and the advantage of extending – instead of restricting – the privilege of the direct vote. He seems to look upon the members of the two Houses as different orders of beings – different classes – a higher and a lower class; the former placed in the Senate by the wisdom of State legislatures, the latter in the House of Representatives by the folly of the people – when the fact is, that they are not only of the same order and class, but mainly the same individuals. The Senate is almost entirely made up out of the House! and it is quite certain that every senator whom Mons. de Tocqueville had in his eye when he bestowed such encomium on that body had come from the House of Representatives! placed there by the popular vote, and afterwards transferred to the Senate by the legislature; not as new men just discovered by the superior sagacity of that body, but as public men with national reputations, already illustrated by the operation of popular elections. And if Mons. de Tocqueville had chanced to make his visit some years sooner, he would have seen almost every one of these senators, to whom his exclusive praise is directed, actually sitting in the other House.

Away, then, with his fact! and with it, away with all his fanciful theory of wise elections by small electoral colleges, and silly ones by the people! and away with all his logical deductions, from premises which have no existence, and which would have us still further to "refine popular discretion," by increasing and extending the number of electoral colleges through which it is to be filtrated. Not only all vanishes, but his praise goes to the other side, and redounds to the credit of popular elections; for almost every distinguished man in the Senate or in any other department of the government, now or heretofore – from the Congress of Independence down to the present day – has owed his first elevation and distinction, to popular elections – to the direct vote of the people, given, without the intervention of any intermediate body, to the visible object of their choice; and it is the same in other countries, now and always. The English, the Scotch and the Irish have no electoral colleges; they vote direct, and are never without their ablest men in the House of Commons. The Romans voted direct; and for five hundred years – until fair elections were destroyed by force and fraud – never failed to elect consuls and prætors, who carried the glory of their country beyond the point at which they had found it.

The American people know this – know that popular election has given them every eminent public man that they have ever had – that it is the safest and wisest mode of political election – most free from intrigue and corruption; and instead of further restricting that mode, and reducing the masses to mere electors of electors, they are, in fact, extending it, and altering constitutions to carry elections to the people, which were formerly given to the general assemblies. Many States furnish examples of this. Even the constitution of the United States has been overruled by universal public sentiment in the greatest of its elections – that of President and Vice-President. The electoral college by that instrument, both its words and intent, was to have been an independent body, exercising its own discretion in the choice of these high officers. On the contrary, it has been reduced to a mere formality for the registration of the votes which the people prepare and exact. The speculations of Monsieur de Tocqueville are, therefore, groundless; and must be hurtful to representative government in Europe, where the facts are unknown; and may be injurious among ourselves, where his book is translated into English, with a preface and notes to recommend it.

Admitting that there might be a difference between the appearance of the two Houses, and between their talent, at the time that Mons. de Tocqueville looked in upon them, yet that difference, so far as it might then have existed, was accidental and temporary, and has already vanished. And so far as it may have appeared, or may appear in other times, the difference in favor of the Senate may be found in causes very different from those of more or less judgment and virtue in the constituencies which elect the two Houses. The Senate is a smaller body, and therefore may be more decorous; it is composed of older men, and therefore should be graver, its members have usually served in the highest branches of the State governments, and in the House of Representatives, and therefore should be more experienced; its terms of service are longer, and therefore give more time for talent to mature, and for the measures to be carried which confer fame. Finally, the Senate is in great part composed of the pick of the House, and therefore gains double – by brilliant accession to itself and abstraction from the other. These are causes enough to account for any occasional, or general difference which may show itself in the decorum or ability of the two Houses. But there is another cause, which is found in the practice of some of the States – the caucus system and rotation in office – which brings in men unknown to the people, and turns them out as they begin to be useful; to be succeeded by other new beginners, who are in turn turned out to make room for more new ones; all by virtue of arrangements which look to individual interests, and not to the public good.

The injury of these changes to the business qualities of the House and the interests of the State, is readily conceivable, and very visible in the delegations of States where they do, or do not prevail – in some Southern and some Northern States, for example. To name them might seem invidious, and is not necessary, the statement of the general fact being sufficient to indicate an evil which requires correction. Short terms of service are good on account of their responsibility, and two years is a good legal term; but every contrivance is vicious, and also inconsistent with the re-eligibility permitted by the constitution, which prevents the people from continuing a member as long as they deem him useful to them. Statesmen are not improvised in any country; and in our own, as well as in Great Britain, great political reputations have only been acquired after long service – 20, 30, 40, and even 50 years; and great measures have only been carried by an equal number of years of persevering exertion by the same man who commenced them. Earl Grey and Major Cartwright – I take the aristocratic and the democratic leaders of the movement – only carried British parliamentry reform after forty years of annual consecutive exertion. They organized the Society for Parliamentry Reform in 1792, and carried the reform in 1832 – disfranchising 56 burgs, half disfranchising 31 others, enfranchising 41 new towns; and doubling the number of voters by extending the privilege to £10 householders – extorting, perhaps, the greatest concession from power and corruption to popular right that was ever obtained by civil and legal means. Yet this was only done upon forty years' continued annual exertions. Two men did it, but it took them forty years.

The same may be said of other great British measures – Catholic emancipation, corn law repeal, abolition of the slave trade, and many others; each requiring a lifetime of continued exertion from devoted men. Short service, and not popular election, is the evil of the House of Representatives; and this becomes more apparent by contrast – contrast between the North and the South – the caucus, or rotary system, not prevailing in the South, and useful members being usually continued from that quarter as long as useful; and thus with fewer members, usually showing a greater number of men who have attained a distinction. Monsieur de Tocqueville is profoundly wrong, and does great injury to democratic government, as his theory countenances the monarchial idea of the incapacity of the people for self-government. They are with us the best and safest depositories of the political elective power. They have not only furnished to the Senate its ablest members through the House of Representatives, but have sometimes repaired the injustice of State legislatures, which repulsed or discarded some eminent men. The late Mr. John Quincy Adams, after forty years of illustrious service – after having been minister to half the great courts of Europe, a senator in Congress, Secretary of State, and President of the United States – in the full possession of all his great faculties, was refused an election by the Massachusetts legislature to the United States Senate, where he had served thirty years before. Refused by the legislature, he was taken up by the people, sent to the House of Representatives, and served there to octogenarian age – attentive, vigilant and capable – an example to all, and a match for half the House to the last. The brilliant, incorruptible, sagacious Randolph – friend of the people, of the constitution, of economy and hard money – scourge and foe to all corruption, plunder and jobbing – had nearly the same fate; dropped from the Senate by the Virginia general assembly, restored to the House of Representatives by the people of his district, to remain there till, following the example of his friend, the wise Macon, he voluntarily withdrew. I name no more, confining myself to instances of the illustrious dead.