Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850Benton, Thomas Hart
History
Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850
Benton, Thomas Hart
United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861
"No, sir, the senator from South Carolina is free from all reproach
of sticking to hobbies. He was for a bank of the United States in
1816. He proposed, supported, and with his accustomed ability,
carried through the charter. He sustained it upon its admitted
grounds of constitutionality, of which he never once breathed the
expression of a doubt. During the twenty years of its continuance
no scruple ever escaped from him as to the power to create it. And
in 1834, when it was about to expire, he deliberately advocated
the renewal of its term for twelve years more. How profound he may
suppose the power of analysis to be, and whatever opinion he may
entertain of his own metaphysical faculty,--can he imagine that any
plain, practical, common sense man can ever comprehend how it is
constitutional to prolong an unconstitutional bank for twelve years?
He may have all the speeches he has ever delivered read to us in an
audible voice by the secretary, and call upon the Senate attentively
to hear them, beginning with his speech in favor of a bank of the
United States in 1816, down to his speech _against_ a bank of the
United States, delivered the other day, and he will have made no
progress in his task. I do not speak this in any unkind spirit, but
I will tell the honorable senator when he will be consistent. He
will be so, when he resolves henceforward, during the residue of
his life, never to pronounce the word again. We began our public
career nearly together; we remained together throughout the war and
down to the peace. We agreed as to a bank of the United States--as
to a protective tariff--as to internal improvements--and lately,
as to those arbitrary and violent measures which characterized the
administration of General Jackson. No two prominent public men ever
agreed better together in respect to important measures of national
policy. We concur now in nothing. We separate for ever."
Mr. CALHOUN. "The senator from Kentucky says that the sentiments
contained in my Edgefield letter then met his view for the first
time, and that he read that document with equal pain and amazement.
Now it happens that I expressed these self-same sentiments just as
strongly in 1834, in a speech which was received with unbounded
applause by that gentleman's own party; and of which a vast number
of copies were published and circulated throughout the United States.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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