H. OF R.]

Petitions of W. P. Lawrence and E. Hamilton, widow of Gen. Hamilton, [FEBRUARY, 1816.

"Nullus tantus quæstus, quam quod habes parcere."

[At the last word Mr. H. hesitated somewhat, not being able to recall it immediately to mind, which excited considerable laughter. On recollection, however, he proceeded.]

towards the settlement of outstanding accounts | the matter under discussion. It was to the folof the different departments. Perhaps it was lowing effect: thought that persons who might be, or had been, in the public service, and in the habit of handling public money, would feel some little delicacy, and be possibly deterred from allowing their accounts to remain so long unsettled, by the certainty of having their names thus brought before Congress, and thereby held up to the world. If such was the expectation, he was sorry to say it had, in a great measure, if not altogether, failed; for the most respectable names were to be found in the same columns with those who were probably real defaulters, and who thereby escaped, in a great degree, the opprobrium so richly their due. This was one among the many motives which induced him to wish an investigation of the subject. Another, was the amount of these balances. It was not a question in regard to hundreds or thousands, or tens of thousands. He could put his finger on unsettled balances of hundreds of thousands, in some instances of more than half a million of dollars.

Parcere, to economize, is the word, and a very significant and important word it was. At the moment, it had escaped his recollection; but this was not surprising, for it was a word not unfrequently forgotten by other honorable members in the House. No wonder, therefore, that the air of that hall, and an esprit de corps, had unexpectedly, and somewhat untowardly to be sure, affected his memory. He joined, however, with pleasure in the laugh, though at his own immediate expense. He did so the more willingly and readily, as he augured favor ably to the success of his resolution from the good humor the House was in.

Death of Mr. Brigham.

Mr. PICKERING then announced the death of

his colleague, Mr. BRIGHAM, and moved that a committee should be appointed to superintend his funeral. A committee of seven was accordingly appointed for the purpose.

Mr. PICKERING then moved that the House

should, as a testimony of their respect for the

for a month, which was ordered. He then moved that the members of the House should and that a message should be sent to the Senate with information to that effect; which was all ordered.

attend the funeral at twelve o'clock to-morrow;

The House then adjourned to Saturday.

He begged leave, therefore, again to call up his resolution. And here he would resume his seat, but some gentleman near him suggested a call of the yeas and nays. For himself, he had no wish or intention to demand them. On the contrary, he did not want the yeas and nays called. His object was not to excite party feeling, nor to animadvert upon any Administra-deceased, wear a black crape on the left arm tion, nor upon any description of men. His real and bona fide object was to have the business fairly and fully investigated; to learn how it happened that such enormous balances remained so long unliquidated and unsettled, and to see whether measures could not be devised to remedy, or at least to check the growth of what appeared to him, and he believed to every gentleman who heard him, a serious evil. The time, as before observed, was peculiarly favoraWilliam P. Lawrence. ble to such an investigation; so much so, that if the House thought with him, he would be disMr. YANCEY, from the Committee of Claims, posed to have select committees appointed to made a report on the petition of William P. examine into the expenditure, accounts, and Lawrence, which was read, and the resolution mode of settlement in each and every depart-therein contained was concurred in by the ment. He verily believed that Congress could not adopt a measure which would be more grateful to their constituents, and to the Chief Executive Magistrate himself, nor one more likely to have a beneficial operation, as well in correcting any possible abuses heretofore, as in promoting a correct administration of the public

revenue in time to come.

Mr. H. observed, it had become the fashion of the day to quote Latin. He would ask leave to contribute his mite to the common stock, and offer a Latin sentence to their consideration. He said it was an old and trite maxim, familiar to everybody, and which he recollected to have heard often quoted, when a boy, by an old-fashioned master of arithmetic, under whom he had studied. It nevertheless appeared to him by no means unworthy of the attention of even that honorable body, nor altogether inapplicable to

House.

SATURDAY, February 24.

Elizabeth Hamilton, widow of Gen. Hamilton.

Mr. COMSTOCK, from the Committee on Pensions and Revolutionary Claims, made a report on the petition of Elizabeth Hamilton, which was read; when Mr. C. reported a bill for the relief of Elizabeth Hamilton, which was read twice, and committed to a Committee of the Whole. The report is as follows:

That it is stated by the petitioner that her late husband, Alexander Hamilton, was, as she is advised, justly entitled to five years' full pay (as commutation which capacity he served in the regular Army of the or half-pay during life) of a lieutenant colonel, in United States during the Revolutionary war.

That her husband never received the said pay to which he was so entitled; that if he ever relinquished his claim to said pay, of which an apprehension is expressed by the petitioner, it was from the delicate

H. OF R.]

National Bank.

[FEBRUARY, 1816.

questions, he conceived, would be a useless | eral Government. The States could not do it' consumption of time. The constitutional ques- He argued, therefore, taking into view the protion had been already so freely and frequently hibition against the States issuing bills of credit, discussed, that all had made up their mind on that there was a strong presumption this power it. The question whether banks were favorable was intended to be exclusively given to Conto public liberty and prosperity, was one purely gress. Mr. C. acknowledged there was no prospeculative. The fact of the existence of banks, vision in the constitution by which States were and their incorporation with the commercial prohibited from creating the banks which now concerns and industry of the nation, proved exercised this power; but, he said, banks were that inquiry to come too late. The only ques- then but little known; there was but one, the tion was, on this hand, under what modifications Bank of North America, with a capital of only were banks most useful, and whether the United four hundred thousand dollars; and the univerStates ought or ought not to exercise the power sal opinion was, that bank notes represented to establish a bank. As to the question whether gold and silver, and that there could be no a National Bank would be favorable to the ad- necessity to prohibit banking institutions under ministration of the finances of the Government, this impression, because their notes always repreit was one on which there was so little doubt, sented gold and silver, and they could not be that gentlemen would excuse him if he did not multiplied beyond the demands of the country. enter into it. Leaving all these questions Mr. C. drew the distinction between banks of dethen, Mr. C. said, he proposed to examine the posit and banks of discount, the latter of which cause and state of the disorders of the national were then but little understood, and their abuse currency, and the question whether it was in not conceived until demonstrated by recent exthe power of Congress, by establishing a perience. No man, he remarked, in the ConvenNational Bank, to remove those disorders. This, tion, much talent and wisdom as it contained, he observed, was a question of novelty and could possibly have foreseen the course of these vital importance-a question which greatly institutions; that they would have multiplied affected the character and prosperity of the from one to two hundred and sixty; from a country. capital of four hundred thousand dollars to one of eighty millions; from being consistent with the provisions of the constitution, and the exclusive right of Congress to regulate the cur rency, that they would be directly opposed to it; that so far from their credit depending on their punctuality in redeeming their bills with specie, they might go on, ad infinitum, in violation of their contract, without a dollar in their vaults. There had, indeed, Mr. C. said, been an extraordinary revolution in the currency of the country. By a sort of under-current, the power of Congress to regulate the money of the country had caved in, and upon its ruin had sprung up those institutions which now exercised the right of making money for the United Statesfor gold and silver are not the only money, but whatever is the medium of purchase and sale, in which bank paper alone was now employed, and had, therefore, become the money of the country. A change, great and wonderful, has taken place, said he, which divests you of your rights, and turns you back to the condition of the Revolutionary war, in which every State issued bills of credit, which were made a legal tender and were of various value.

As to the state of the currency of the nation, Mr. C. proceeded to remark that it was extremely depreciated, and in degrees varying according to the different sections of the country, all would assent. That this state of the currency was a stain on public and private credit, and injurious to the morals of the community, was so clear a position as to require no proof. There were, however, other considerations arising from the state of the currency not so distinctly felt, nor so generally assented to. The state of our circulating medium was, he said, opposed to the principles of the Federal Constitution. The power was given to Congress by that instrument in express terms to regulate the currency of the United States. In point of fact, he said, that power, though given to Congress, is not in their hands. The power is exercised by banking institutions, no longer responsible for the correctness with which they manage it. Gold and silver have disappeared entirely, there is no money but paper money, and that money is beyond the control of Congress. No one, he said, who referred to the constitution, could doubt that the money of the United States was intended to be placed entirely under the control of Congress. The only object the framers of the constitution could have in view in giving to Congress the power "to coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin," must have been to give a steadiness and fixed value to the currency of the United States. The state of things at the time of the adoption of the constitution, afforded Mr. C. an argument in support of his construction. There then existed, he said, a depreciated paper currency, which could only be regulated and made uniform by giving a power for that purpose to the Gen

This, then, Mr. C. said, was the evil. We have in lieu of gold and silver a paper medium, unequally but generally depreciated, which affects the trade and industry of the nation; which paralyzes the national arm; which sullies the faith, both public and private, of the United States; a paper no longer resting on gold and silver as its basis. We have indeed laws regulating the currency of foreign coin, but they are under present circumstances a mockery of legislation, because there is no coin in circulation. The right of making moneyan attribute of sovereign power, a sacred and

important right-was exercised by two hundred and sixty banks, scattered over every part of the United States, not responsible to any power whatever for their issues of paper. The next and great inquiry was, he said, how this evil was to be remedied. Restore, said he, these institutions to their original use; cause them to give up their usurped power; cause them to return to their legitimate office of places of discount and deposit; let them be no longer mere paper machines; restore the state of things which existed anterior to 1813, which was consistent with the just policy and interests of the country; cause them to fulfil their contracts, to respect their broken faith, resolve that everywhere there shall be a uniform value to the national currency, your constitutional control will then prevail.

ver.

A National Bank, he says, paying specie itself, would have a tendency to make specie payments general, as well by its influence as by its example. It will be the interest of the National Bank to produce this state of things, because otherwise its operations will be greatly circumscribed, as it must pay out specie or National Bank notes; for he presumed one of the first rules of such a bank would be to take the notes of no bank which did not pay in gold and silA National Bank of thirty-five millions, with the aid of those banks which are at once ready to pay specie, would produce a powerful effect all over the Union. Further, a National Bank would enable the Government to resort to measures which would make it unprofitable to banks to continue the violation of their contracts, and advantageous to return to the observance of them. The leading measures of this character would be to strip the banks refusing to pay specie of all the profits arising from the business of the Government, to prohibit deposits with them, and to refuse to receive their notes in payment of dues to the Government. How far such measures would be efficacious in producing a return to specie payments, he was unable to say; but it was as far as he would be willing to go at the present session. If they persisted in refusing to resume payments in specie, Congress must resort to measures of a deeper tone, which they had in their power.

|

[H. OF R.

cluded by observing, that he could have said much more on this important subject, but he knew how difficult it was to gain the attention of the House to long addresses.

Mr. RANDOLPH, in explaining an allusion which Mr. CALHOUN had made to a remark of his on a former occasion, said that he had listened to the honorable gentleman with pleasure; he was glad to see a cause so important in hands so able. He promised the honorable gentleman, though he might not agree in his mode of remedying the evil, he would go with him in the application of any adequate remedy to an evil which he regarded as most enormous.

TUESDAY, February 27.
National Bank.

The House went into Committee of the Whole on the Bank bill. Mr. SERGEANT'S motion to reduce the proposed capital from thirty-five to twenty millions being under consideration

Mr. SMITH, of Maryland, rose to express his views of the subject generally, as well as on the particular point under consideration. He appeared to coincide in opinion with Mr. CALHOUN, that the establishment of a Bank of the United States would contribute better than any other measure to the restoration of a general medium of circulation of uniform value. He was afraid that it was the only remedy. Perhaps he should not agree with the gentleman in some of his positions, particularly as respected the conduct and state of the banks. It might be prudent on the part of Congress, he remarked, to let down these institutions as gently as they could, and do every thing to enable them to meet their engagements by specie payments on some future day. With some modification of the plan proposed by this bill, he thought the establishment of a National Bank would effectually contribute to that object.

Mr. S. said he was not entirely satisfied with the plan of the bank proposed by the committee; but might not the plan be so modified as to meet the views of a large majority of the House? He could find but few gentlemen, he said, who, in conversation, did not appear faThe evil he desired to remedy, Mr. C. said, vorable to the establishment of a bank. Some was a deep one; almost incurable, because con- preferred a plan less complex than the present; nected with public opinion, over which banks some were hostile to the control of the Governhave a great control; they have, in a great ment in it, in which, perhaps, they were right. measure, a control over the press. For proof Others were hostile to Treasury notes forming of which, he referred to the fact that the pres- any part of the capital; in which, Mr. S. said, ent wretched state of the circulating medium he concurred. Where was the difficulty in had scarcely been denounced by a single paper yielding those minor points, for the sake of obwithin the United States. The derangement of taining a general concurrence in favor of the a circulating medium, he said, was a joint bill? Other features were objected to-the thrown out of its socket; let it remain for a power to authorize suspension of payments in short time in that state, and the sinews will be specie, &c.-these he would also give up, rather so knit that it cannot be replaced; apply the than they should defeat the bill altogether. As remedy soon, and it is an operation easy, though to the question, when the specie payments of painful. The evil grows, whilst the resistance the bank should commence, Mr. S. said, accordto it becomes weak; and, unless checked ating to the proposed mode of payment, it would once, will become irresistible. Mr. C. con-not be very soon. To remedy this objection,