“As the gentleman from South Carolina has presented the question to the House, they and the nation cannot have the slightest difficulty in deciding whether they will give up the States or not; whether they will, in fact, make this an elective monarchy. The question is whether or not we are willing to become one great consolidated nation; or whether we have still respect enough for those old, respectable institutions to regard their integrity and preservation as a part of our policy.” Randolph’s eccentricities, which amounted to insanity, prevented him from exercising in the House the influence to which his experience and abilities entitled him, but did not prevent him from reflecting the opinions of a large part of the nation, particularly in the South. Between these two impulses the Fourteenth Congress was to choose a path, subject to the future judgment of their constituents. The Executive urged them on. Dallas began by sending to Calhoun, the chairman of the Committee on Currency, a plan for a national bank with a capital of thirty-five millions and power to increase it to fifty millions; with twenty-five directors, five of whom were to be appointed by the government to represent its share in the bank stock, of which the government was to subscribe one fifth.[124] In another report, dated Feb. 12, 1816, Dallas recommended a protective tariff and sketched its details. Upon cotton fabrics he proposed a duty of thirty-three and one half per cent on their value; on woollens, twenty-eight per cent; on linen, hemp, and silk, twenty per cent; on paper, leather, etc., thirty-five per cent; on earthenware, glassware, etc., thirty per cent; on bar-iron, seventy-five cents per hundred weight; on rolled iron, a dollar and a half; and on unenumerated articles, fifteen per cent. These duties were avowedly protective, intended to serve as the foundation of a system, and to perpetuate the policy to which the Government stood pledged by its legislation for the last six years. In connection with a proposed reduction of internal taxes, the Bank and the Tariff covered the financial field. The House first grappled with the subject of revenue. The Committee of Ways and Means, through William Lowndes, reported, Jan. 9, 1816, a scheme embodied in twelve Resolutions intended to serve as the guide to definite legislation. Lowndes assumed a net annual revenue of $25,369,000; and to obtain this sum he proposed to shift the burden of about seven million dollars from internal taxation to the customs, by an addition of forty-two per cent to the rates of permanent duty.[125] The direct tax was to be retained to the amount of three million dollars, and an annual fund of $13,500,000 was to be set aside for the interest and principal of the national debt.