"It is not proposed to procure the required amount by loans or increased taxation. There are now in the treasury nine millions three hundred and sixty-seven thousand two hundred and fourteen dollars, directed by the Act of the 23d of June, 1836, to be deposited with the States in October next. This sum, if so deposited, will be subject, under the law, to be recalled, if needed, to defray existing appropriations; and, as it is now evident that the whole, or the principal part of it, will be wanted for that purpose, it appears most proper that the deposits should be withheld. Until the amount can be collected from the banks, treasury notes may be temporarily issued, to be gradually redeemed as it is received." Six millions of treasury notes only were required, and from this small amount required, it is easy to see how readily an adequate amount could have been secured from the deposit banks, if the administration had foreseen a month or two beforehand that the suspension was to take place. An issue of treasury notes, being an imitation of the exchequer bill issues of the British government, which had been the facile and noiseless way of swamping that government in bottomless debt, was repugnant to the policy of this writer, and opposed by him: but of this hereafter. The third instalment of the deposit, as it was called, had been received by the States--received in depreciated paper, and the fourth demanded in the same. A deposit demanded! and claimed as a debt!--that is to say: the word "_deposit_" used in the act admitted to be both by Congress and the States a fraud and a trick, and distribution the thing intended and done. Seldom has it happened that so gross a fraud, and one, too, intended to cheat the constitution, has been so promptly acknowledged by the high parties perpetrating it. But of this also hereafter. The decorum and reserve of a State paper would not allow the President to expatiate upon the enormity of the suspension which had been contrived, nor to discriminate between the honest and solvent banks which had been taken by surprise and swept off in a current which they could not resist, and the insolvent or criminal class, which contrived the catastrophe and exulted in its success. He could only hint at the discrimination, and, while recommending the bankrupt process for one class, to express his belief that with all the honest and solvent institutions the suspension would be temporary, and that they would seize the earliest moment which the conduct of others would permit, to vindicate their integrity and ability by returning to specie payments. CHAPTER IX. ATTACKS ON THE MESSAGE: TREASURY NOTES.