Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

"His own name was made to figure in that report – in very good company to be sure, that of President Jackson, Vice-President Van Buren and Mr. senator Grundy. It seems that we have all been detected in something that deserves exposure – in the offence of aiding our respective constituents, or fellow-citizens in obtaining branch banks to be located in our respective States; and upon this detection, the assertion is made that these branches were not extended to these States for political effect, when the charter was nearly run out, but in good faith, and upon our application, to aid the business of the country. Mr. B. said, it was true that he had forwarded a petition from the merchants of St. Louis, about 1826 or '27, soliciting a branch at that place: and he had accompanied it by a letter, as he had been requested to do, sustaining and supporting their request; and bearing the testimony to their characters as men of business and property which the occasion and the truth required. He did this for merchants who were his political enemies, and he did it readily and cordially, as a representative ought to act for his constituents, whether they are for him, or against him, in the elections. So far so good; but the allegation of the report is, that the branch at St. Louis was established upon this petition and this letter, and therefore was not established with political views, but purely and simply for business purposes. Now, said Mr. B., I have a question to put to the senator from Virginia (Mr. Tyler), who has made the report for the committee: It is this: whether the president or directors of the bank had informed him that General Cadwallader had been sent as an agent to St. Louis, to examine the place, and to report upon its ability to sustain a branch?

"Mr. Tyler rose, and said, that he had heard nothing at the bank upon the subject of Gen. Cadwallader having been sent to St. Louis, or any report upon the place being made."

"Then, said Mr. Benton, resuming his speech, the committee has been treated unworthily, – scurvily, – basely, – by the bank! It has been made the instrument to report an untruth to the Senate, and to the American people; and neither the Senate, nor that part of the American people who chance to be in this chamber, shall be permitted to leave their places until that falsehood is exposed.

"Sir, said Mr B., addressing the Vice-President, the president, and directors of the Bank of the United States, upon receiving the merchants' petition, and my letter, did not send a branch to St. Louis! They sent an agent there, in the person of General Cadwallader, to examine the place, and to report upon its mercantile capabilities and wants; and upon that report, the decision was made, and made against the request of the merchants, and that upon the ground that the business of the place would not justify the establishment of a branch. The petition from the merchants came to Mr. B. while he was here, in his seat; it was forwarded from this place to Philadelphia; the agent made his visit to St. Louis before he (Mr. B.) returned; and when he got home, in the spring, or summer, the merchants informed him of what had occurred; and that they had received a letter from the directory of the bank, informing them that a branch could not be granted; and there the whole affair, so far as the petition and the letter were concerned, died away. But, said Mr. B., it happened just in that time, that I made my first demonstration – struck my first blow – against the bank; and the next news that I had from the merchants was, that another letter had been received from the bank, without any new petition having been sent, and without any new report upon the business of the place, informing them that the branch was to come! And come it did, and immediately went to work to gain men and presses, to govern the politics of the State, to exclude him (Mr. B.) from re-election to the Senate; and to oppose every candidate, from governor to constable, who was not for the bank. The branch had even furnished a list to the mother bank, through some of its officers, of the names and residences of the active citizens in every part of the State; and to these, and to their great astonishment at the familiarity and condescension of the high directory in Philadelphia, myriads of bank documents were sent, with a minute description of name and place, postage free. At the presidential election of 1832, the State was deluged with these favors. At his own re-elections to the Senate, the two last, the branch bank was in the field against him every where, and in every form; its directors traversing the State, going to the houses of the members of the General Assembly after they were elected, in almost every county, over a State of sixty thousand square miles; and then attending the legislature as lobby members, to oppose him. Of these things Mr. B. had never spoken in public before, nor should he have done it now, had it not been for the falsehood attempted to be palmed upon the Senate through the instrumentality of its committee. But having been driven into it, he would mention another circumstance, which also, he had never named in public before, but which would throw light upon the establishment of the branch in St. Louis, and the kind of business which it had to perform. An immense edition of a review of his speech on the veto message, was circulated through his State on the eve of his last election. It bore the impress of the bank foundry in Philadelphia, and was intended to let the people of Missouri see that he (Mr. B.) was a very unfit person to represent them: and afterwards it was seen from the report of the government directors to the President of the United States, that seventy-five thousand copies of that review were paid for by the Bank of the United States!"

The committee had gone out of their way – departed from the business with which they were charged by the Senate's resolution – to bring up a stale imputation upon Gen. Jackson, for becoming inimical to Mr. Biddle, because he could not make him subservient to his purposes. The imputation was unfounded and gratuitous, and disproved by the journals of the Senate, which bore Gen. Jackson's nomination of Mr. Biddle for government director – and at the head of those directors, thereby indicating him for president of the bank – three several times, in as many successive years, after the time alleged for this hostility and vindictiveness. This unjustifiable imputation became the immediate, the next point of Mr. Benton's animadversion; and was thus disposed of:

"Mr. B. said there was another thing which must be noticed now, because the proof to confound it was written in our own journals. He alluded to the 'hostility' of the President of the United States to the bank, which made so large a figure in that report. The 'vindictiveness' of the President, – the 'hostility' of the President, was often pressed into the service of that report – which he must be permitted to qualify as an elaborate defence of the bank. Whether used originally, or by quotation, it was the same thing. The quotation from Mr. Duane was made to help out the argument of the committee – to sustain their position – and thereby became their own. The 'vindictiveness' of the President towards the bank, is brought forward with imposing gravity by the committee; and no one is at a loss to understand what is meant! The charge has been made too often not to suggest the whole story as often as it is hinted. The President became hostile to Mr. Biddle, according to this fine story, because he could not manage him! because he could not make him use the institution for political purposes! and hence his revenge, his vindictiveness, his hatred of Mr. Biddle, and his change of sentiment towards the institution. This is the charge which has run through the bank presses for three years, and is alleged to take date from 1829, when an application was made to change the president of the Portsmouth branch. But how stands the truth, recorded upon our own journals? It stands thus: that for three consecutive years after the harboring of this deadly malice against Mr. Biddle, for not managing the institution to suit the President's political wishes – for three years, one after another, with this 'vindictive' hate in his bosom, and this diabolical determination to ruin the institution, he nominates this same Mr. Biddle to the Senate, as one of the government directors, and at the head of those directors! Mr. Biddle and some of his friends with him came in, upon every nomination for three successive years, after vengeance had been sworn against him! For three years afterwards he is not only named a director, but indicated for the presidency of the bank, by being put at the head of those who came recommended by the nomination of the President, and the sanction of the Senate! Thus was he nominated for the years 1830, 1831, and 1832; and it was only after the report of Mr. Clayton's committee of 1832 that the President ceased to nominate Mr. Biddle for government director! Such was the frank, confiding and friendly conduct of the President; while Mr. Biddle, conscious that he did not deserve a nomination at his hands, had himself also elected during each of these years, at the head of the stockholders' ticket. He knew what he was meditating and hatching against the President, though the President did not! What then becomes of the charge faintly shadowed forth by the committee, and publicly and directly made by the bank and its friends? False! False as hell! and no senator can say it without finding the proof of the falsehood recorded in our own journal!"

Mr. Benton next defended Mr. Taney from an unjustifiable and gratuitous assault made upon him by the committee – the more unwarrantable because that gentleman was in retirement – no more in public life – having resigned his place of Secretary of the Treasury the day he was rejected by the Senate. Mr. Taney, in his report upon the removal of the deposits, had repeated, what the government directors and a committee of the House of Representatives had first reported, of the illegal conduct of the bank committee of exchange, in making loans. The fact was true, and as since shown, to a far higher degree than then detected; and the Senate's committee were unjustifiable in defending it. But not satisfied with this defence of a criminal institution against a just accusation, they took the opportunity of casting censure upon Mr. Taney, and gaining a victory over him by making a false issue. Mr. Benton immediately corrected this injustice. He said:

"That he was not now going into a general answer to the report, but he must do justice to an absent gentleman – one of the purest men upon earth, both in public and private life, and who, after the manner he had been treated in this chamber, ought to be secure, in his retirement, from senatorial attack and injustice. The committee have joined a conspicuous issue with Mr. Taney; and they have carried a glorious bank victory over him, by turning off the trial upon a false point. Mr. Taney arraigned the legality of the conduct of the exchange committee, which, overleaping the business of such a committee, which is to buy and sell real bills of exchange, had become invested with the power of the whole board; transacting that business which, by the charter, could only be done by the board of directors, and by a board of not less than seven, and which they could not delegate. Yet this committee, of three, selected by the President himself, was shown by the report of the government directors to transact the most important business; such as making immense loans, upon long credits, and upon questionable security; sometimes covering its operations under this simulated garb, and falsified pretext, of buying a bill of exchange; sometimes using no disguise at all. It was shown, by the same report, to have the exclusive charge of conducting the curtailment last winter; a business of the most important character to the country, having no manner of affinity to the proper functions of an exchange committee; and which they conducted in the most partial and iniquitous manner; and without even reporting to the board. All this the government directors communicated. All this was commented upon on this floor; yet Mr. Taney is selected! He is the one pitched upon; as if nobody but him had arraigned the illegal acts of this committee; and then he is made to arraign the existence of the committee, and not its misconduct! Is this right? Is it fair? Is it just thus to pursue that gentleman, and to pursue him unjustly? Can the vengeance of the bank never be appeased while he lives and moves on earth?"

After having vindicated the President, the Vice-President, Mr. Grundy, Mr. Taney, and himself, from the unfounded imputations of the committee, so gratuitously presented, so unwarranted in fact, and so foreign to the purpose for which they were appointed, Mr. Benton laid hold of some facts which had come to light for the purpose of showing the misconduct of the bank, and to invalidate the committee's report. The first was the transportation of specie to London while pressing it out of the community here. He said:

"He had performed a duty, which ought not to be delayed an hour, in defending himself, the President, and Mr. Taney, from the sad injustice of that report; the report itself, with all its elaborate pleadings for the bank, – its errors of omission and commission, – would come up for argument after it was printed; and when, with God's blessing, and the help of better hands, he would hope to show that it was the duty of the Senate to recommit it, with instructions to examine witnesses upon oath, and to bring out that secret history of the institution, which seems to have been a sealed book to the committee. For the present, he would bring to light two facts, detected in the intricate mazes of the monthly statements, which would fix at once, both the character of the bank and the character of the report; the bank, for its audacity, wickedness and falsehood; the report, for its blindness, fatuity, and partiality.

"The bank, as all America knows (said Mr. B.), filled the whole country with the endless cry which had been echoed and re-echoed from this chamber, that the removal of the deposits had laid her under the necessity of curtailing her debts; had compelled her to call in her loans, to fill the vacuum in her coffers produced by this removal; and thus to enable herself to stand the pressure which the 'hostility' of the government was bringing upon her. This was the assertion for six long months; and now let facts confront this assertion, and reveal the truth to an outraged and insulted community.

"The first fact" (said Mr. B.), is the transfer of the moneys to London, to lie there idle, while squeezed out of the people here during the panic and pressure.

"The cry of distress was raised in December, at the meeting of Congress; and during that month the sum of $129,764 was transferred by the bank to its agents, the Barings. This cry waxed stronger till July, and until that time the monthly transfers were:

Making the sum of near three millions and a half transferred to London, to lie idle in the hands of an agent, while that very money was squeezed out of a few cities here; and the whole country, and the halls of Congress, were filled with the deafening din of the cry, that the bank was forced to curtail, to supply the loss in her own coffers from the removal of the deposits! And, worse yet! The bank had, in the hands of the same agents, a large sum when the transfers of these panic collections began; making in the whole, the sum of $4,261,201, on the first day of July last, which was lying idle in her agents' hands in London, drawing little or no interest there, while squeezed out of the hands of those who were paying bank interest here, near seven per cent.; and had afterwards to go into brokers' hands to borrow at one or two per cent. a month. Even now, at the last returns on the first day of this month, about two millions and a half of this money ($2,678,006) was still lying idle in the hands of the Barings! waiting till foreign exchange can be put up again to eight or ten per cent. The enormity of this conduct, Mr. B. said, was aggravated by the notorious fact, that the transfers of this money were made by sinking the price of exchange as low as five per cent. below par, when shippers and planters had bills to sell; and raising it eight per cent. above par when merchants and importers had to buy; thus double taxing the commerce of the country – double taxing the producer and consumer – and making a fluctuation of thirteen per cent. in foreign exchange, in the brief space of six months. And all this to make money scarce at home while charging that scarcity upon the President! Thus combining calumny and stock-jobbing with the diabolical attempt to ruin the country, or to rule it."

The next glaring fact which showed the enormous culpability of the bank in making the pressure and distress, was the abduction of about a million and a quarter of hard dollars from New Orleans, while distressing the business community there by refusal of discounts and the curtailment of loans, under pretence of making up what she lost there by the removal of the deposits. The fact of the abduction was detected in the monthly reports still made to the Secretary of the Treasury, and was full proof of the wantonness and wickedness of the pressure, as the amount thus squeezed out of the community was immediately transferred to Philadelphia or New-York; to be thence shipped to London. Mr. Benton thus exposed this iniquity:

"The next fact, Mr. B. said, was the abduction of an immense amount of specie from New Orleans, at the moment the Western produce was arriving there; and thus disabling the merchants from buying that produce, and thereby sinking its price nearly one half; and all under the false pretext of supplying the loss in its coffers, occasioned by the removal of the deposits.

"The falsehood and wickedness of this conduct will appear from the fact, that, at the time of the removal of the deposits, in October, the public deposits, in the New Orleans branch, were far less than the amount afterwards curtailed, and sent off; and that these deposits were not entirely drawn out, for many months after the curtailment and abduction of the money. Thus, the public deposits, in October, were:

"In all, upwards of one hundred thousand dollars; and making the actual withdrawal of deposits, at that branch, but $360,000, and that paid out gradually, in the discharge of government demands.

"Now, what was the actual curtailment, during the same period? It is shown from the monthly statements, that these curtailments, on local loans, were $788,904; being upwards of double the amount of deposits, miscalled removed; for they were not removed; but only paid out in the regular progress of government disbursement, and actually remaining in the mass of circulation, and much of it in the bank itself. But the specie removed during the same time! that was the fact, the damning fact, upon which he relied. This abduction was:

"Making near a million and a quarter of dollars, at the least. Mr. B. repeated, at the least; for a monthly statement does not show the accumulation of the month which might also be sent off; and the statement could only be relied on for so much as appeared a month before the abduction was made. Probably the sum was upwards of a million and a quarter of hard dollars, thus taken away from New Orleans last winter, by stopping accommodations, calling in loans, breaking up domestic exchange, creating panic and pressure, and sinking the price of all produce; that the mother bank might transfer funds to London, gamble in foreign exchange, spread desolation and terror through the land; and then charge the whole upon the President of the United States; and end with the grand consummation of bringing a new political party into power, and perpetuating its own charter."

Mr. Benton commented on the barefacedness of running out an immense line of discounts, so soon done after the rise of the last session of Congress, and so suddenly, that the friends of the bank, in remote places, not having had time to be informed of the "reversal of the bank screws," were still in full chorus, justifying the curtailment; and concluded with denouncing the report as ex parte, and remarking upon the success of the committee in finding what they were not sent to look for, and not finding what they ought to have found. He said:

"These are some of the astounding iniquities which have escaped the eyes of the committee, while they have been so successful in their antiquarian researches into Andrew Jackson's and Felix Grundy's letters, ten or twenty years ago, and into Martin Van Buren's and Thomas H. Benton's, six or eight years ago; letters which every public man is called upon to give to his neighbors, or constituents; which no public man ought to refuse, or, in all probability ever did refuse; and which are so ostentatiously paraded in the report, and so emphatically read in this chamber, with pause and gesture; and with such a sympathetic look for the expected smile from the friends of the bank; letters which, so far as he was concerned, had been used to make the committee the organ of a falsehood. And now, Mr. B. would be glad to know, who put the committee on the scent of those old musty letters; for there was nothing in the resolution, under which they acted, to conduct their footsteps to the silent covert of that small game."

Mr. Tyler made a brief reply, in defence of the report of the committee, in which he said:

"The senator from Missouri had denominated the report 'an elaborate defence of the bank.' He had said that it justified the bank in its course of curtailment, during the last winter and the early part of the summer. Sir, if the honorable senator had paid more attention to the reading, or had waited to have it in print, he would not have hazarded such a declaration. He would have perceived that that whole question was submitted to the decision of the Senate. The committee had presented both sides of the question – the view most favorable, and that most unfavorable, to the institution. It exhibited the measures of the Executive and those of the bank consequent upon them, on the one side, and the available resources of the bank on the other. The fact that its circulation of $19,000,000 was protected by specie to the amount of $10,000,000, and claims on the State banks exceeding $2,000,000, which were equal to specie – that its purchase of domestic exchange had so declined, from May to October, as to place at its disposal more than $5,000,000; something more than a doubt is expressed whether, under ordinary circumstances, the bank would have been justified in curtailing its discounts. So, too, in regard to a perseverance in its measures of precaution as long as it did, a summary of facts is given to enable the Senate to decide upon the propriety of the course pursued by the bank. The effort of the committee has been to present these subjects fairly to the Senate and the country. They have sought 'nothing to extenuate,' nor have they 'set down ought in malice.' The statements are presented to the senator, for his calm and deliberate consideration – to each senator, to be weighed as becomes his high station. And what is the course of the honorable senator? The moment he (Mr. T.) could return to his seat from the Clerk's table, the gentleman pounces upon the report, and makes assertions which a careful perusal of it would cause him to know it does not contain. On one subject, the controversy relative to the bill of exchange, and the damages consequent on its protest, the committee had expressed the opinion, that the government was in error, and he, as a member of that committee, would declare his own conviction that that opinion was sound and maintainable before any fair and impartial tribunal in the world. Certain persons started back with alarm, at the mere mention of a court of justice. The trial by jury had become hateful in their eyes. The great principles of magna charta are to be overlooked, and the declarations contained in the bill of rights are become too old-fashioned to be valuable. Popular prejudices are to be addressed, and instead of an appeal to the calm judgment of mankind, every lurking prejudice is to be awakened, because a corporation, or a set of individuals, have believed themselves wronged by the accounting officers of the treasury, and have had the temerity and impudence to take a course calculated to bring their rights before the forum of the courts. Let those who see cause to pursue this course rejoice as they may please, and exult in the success which attends it. For one, I renounce it as unworthy American statesmen. The committee had addressed a sober and temperate but firm argument, upon this subject, to the Senate; and, standing in the presence of that august body, and before the whole American people, he rested upon that argument for the truth of the opinion advanced. An opinion, for the honesty of which, on his own part, he would avouch, after the most solemn manner, under the unutterable obligations he was under to his Creator.