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
This was the first speech that Mr. Webster delivered after the
great one before the suspension in New York, and may be considered
the epilogue after the performance as the former was the prologue
before it. It is a speech of exultation, with bitter taunts to
the government. In one respect his information was different from
mine. He said the suspension came sooner than was expected: my
information was that it came later, a month later; and that he
himself was the cause of the delay. My information was that it was
to take place in the first month of Mr. Van Buren's administration,
and that the speech which was to precede it was to be delivered
early in March, immediately after the adjournment of Congress:
but it was not delivered till the middle of that month, nor got
ready for _pamphlet_ publication until the middle of April; which
delay occasioned a corresponding postponement in all the subsequent
proceedings. The complete shutting up of the treasury--the loss
of its moneys--the substitution of broken bank paper for hard
money--the impossibility of paying a dollar to a creditor: these
were the points of his complacent declamation: and having made
these points strong enough and clear enough, he came to the remedy,
and fell upon the same one, in almost the same words, that Mr.
Biddle was using at the same time, four hundred miles distant, in
Philadelphia: and that without the aid of the electric telegraph,
not then in use. The recourse to the Bank of the United States was
that remedy! that bank strong enough to hold out, (unhappily the
news of its suspending arrived while he was speaking:) patriotic
enough to do so! but under no obligation to do better than the
deposit banks! and justifiable in following their example. Hear him:
"The United States Bank, now a mere state institution, with no
public deposits, no aid from government, but, on the contrary,
long an object of bitter persecution by it, was at our latest
advices still firm. But can we expect of that Bank to make
sacrifices to continue specie payment? If it continue to do so,
now the deposit banks have stopped, the government will draw
from it its last dollar, if it can do so, in order to keep up a
pretence of making its own payments in specie. I shall be glad
if this institution find it prudent and proper to hold out; but
as it owes no more duty to the government than any other bank,
and, of course, much less than the deposit banks, I cannot see
any ground for demanding from it efforts and sacrifices to favor
the government, which those holding the public money, and owing
duty to the government, are unwilling or unable to make; nor do
I see how the New England banks can stand alone in the general
crush."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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