nerve to the last, and scorning to see the government capitulate to insurgent banks,--acted up to his character. He advised the paymaster to proceed to Washington and ask for solid money--for the gold and silver which was then lying in the western land offices. He went; but being a military subordinate, he only applied according to the rules of subordination, through the channels of official intercourse: and was denied the hard money, wanted for payments on debenture bonds and officers of the government. He did not go to Mr. Van Buren, as General Jackson intended he should do. He did not feel himself authorized to go beyond official routine. It was in the recess of Congress, and I was not in Washington to go to the President in his place (as I should instantly have done); and, returning without the desired orders, the payments were made, through a storm of imprecations, in this loathsome trash: and Tennessee was lost. And so it was, in more or less degree, throughout the Union. The first object of the suspension had been accomplished--a political revolt against the administration. Miserable as was the currency which the government was obliged to use, it was yet in the still more miserable condition of not having enough of it! The deposits with the States had absorbed two sums of near ten millions each: two more sums of equal amount were demandable in the course of the year. Financial embarrassment, and general stagnation of business, diminished the current receipts from lands and customs: an absolute deficit--that horror, and shame, and mortal test of governments--showed itself ahead. An extraordinary session of Congress became a necessity, inexorable to any contrivance of the administration: and, on the 15th day of May--just five days after the suspension in the principal cities--the proclamation was issued for its assembling: to take place on the first Monday of the ensuing September. It was a mortifying concession to imperative circumstances; and the more so as it had just been refused to the grand committee of Fifty--demanding it in the imposing name of that great meeting in the city of New York. CHAPTER VIII. EXTRA SESSION: MESSAGE, AND RECOMMENDATIONS. The first session of the twenty-fifth Congress, convened upon the proclamation of the President, to meet an extraordinary occasion, met on the first Monday in September, and consisted of the following members: SENATE. NEW HAMPSHIRE--Henry Hubbard and Franklin Pierce. MAINE--John Ruggles and Ruel Williams. VERMONT--Samuel Prentiss and Benjamin Swift. MASSACHUSETTS--Daniel Webster and John Davis. RHODE ISLAND--Nehemiah R. Knight and Asher Robbins. _Connecticut_--John M. Niles and Perry Smith. _New York_--Silas Wright and Nathaniel P. Tallmadge. _New Jersey_--Garret D. Wall and Samuel L. Southard. _Delaware_--Richard H. Bayard and Thomas Clayton. _Pennsylvania_--James Buchanan and Samuel McKean. _Maryland_--Joseph Kent and John S. Spence.