with. The country, I believe, by a great majority, is of opinion that this duty does belong to government, and ought to be exercised. All the new expounders have not been able to erase this general power over commerce, and all that belongs to Their fate, in this respect, is like that of him in ancient story. While endeavoring to tear up and rend asunder the Constitution, its strong fibres have recoiled, and caught them in the cleft. They experience

commerce.

"Milo's fearful end,

Wedged in the timber which they strove to rend."

Gentlemen, this constitutional power can never be surrendered. We may as well give up the whole commercial power at once, and throw every thing connected with it back upon the States. If Congress surrender the power, to whom shall it pass, or where shall it be lodged? Shall it be left to six-and-twenty different legislatures? To eight hundred or a thousand unconnected State banks? No, Gentlemen, to allow that authority to be surrendered would be to abandon the vessel of state, without pilot or helm, and to suffer her to roll, darkling, down the current of her fate.

For the sake of avoiding all misapprehensions on this most important subject, I wish to state my own opinion, clearly, and in few words. I have never said, that it is an indispensable duty in Congress, under all circumstances, to establish a national bank. No such duty, certainly, is created by the Constitution, in express terms. I did not say what particular measures are enjoined by the Constitution, in this respect. Congress has its discretion, and is left to its own judgment, as to the means most proper to be employed. But I say the general duty does exist.

I maintain that Congress is bound to take care, by some proper means, to secure a good currency for the people; and that, while this duty remains unperformed, one great object of the Constitution is not attained. If we are to have as many different currencies as there are States, and these currencies are to be liable to perpetual fluctuation, it would be folly to say that we had reached that security and uniformity in commercial regulation, which we know it was the purpose of the Constitution to establish.

The banks may all resume specie payments to-morrow,I hope they will; but how much will this resumption accomplish? It will doubtless afford good local currencies; but will it give the country any proper and safe paper currency, of equal and universal value? Certainly it cannot, and will not. Will it bring back, for any length of time, exchanges to the state they were in when there was a national currency in existence? Certainly, in my opinion, it will not. We may heap gold bags upon gold bags, we may create what securities, in the constitution of local banks, we please, but we cannot give to any such bank a character that shall insure the receipt of its notes, with equal readiness, everywhere throughout the valley of the Mississippi, and from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Lawrence. Nothing can accomplish this, but an institution which is national in its character. The people desire to see, in their currency, the marks of this nationality. They like to see the spread eagle, and where they see that they have confidence.

Who, if he will look at the present state of things, is not wise enough to see that there is much and deep cause for fear in regard to the future, unless the government will take the subject of currency under its own control, as it ought to do. For one, I think I see trouble ahead, and I look for effectual prevention and remedy only to a just exercise of the powers of Congress. I look not without apprehension upon the creation of numerous and powerful State institutions, full of competition and rivalry, and under no common control. I look for other and oftenrepeated expansions of paper circulation, inflations of trade, and general excess; and then, again, for other violent ebbings of the swollen flood, ending in other suspensions. I see no steadiness, no security, till the government of the United States shall fulfil its constitutional duty. I shall be disappointed, certainly, if, for any length of time, the benefits of a sound and uniform convertible paper currency can be enjoyed, while the whole subject is left to six-and-twenty States, and to eight hundred local banks, all anxious for the use of money and the use of credit in the highest degree.

As I have already said, these sub-treasury schemes are but contrivances for getting away from a disagreeable duty. And, after all, there are scarcely any two of the friends of the admin

istration who can agree upon the same sub-treasury scheme. Each has a plan of his own. One man requires that all banks shall be discarded, and nothing but gold and silver shall be received for revenue. Another will exclaim, "That won't do; that's not my thunder." Another would prohibit all the small notes, and another would banish all the large ones. Another is for a special deposit scheme; for making the banks sub-treasuries and depositories; for making sub-treasuries of the broken, rotten, treacherous banks; for taking bank-notes, tying them up with red strings, depositing them in the vaults, and paying them out again.

It has been the proposition of the administration to separate the money of the government from the money of the people; to secure a good medium of payments, for the use of the treasury, in collecting and disbursing revenue, and to take no care of the general circulation of the country. This is the sum of its policy. Looking upon this whole scheme but as an abandonment of clear constitutional obligation, I have opposed it, in every form in which it has been presented. My object, as I have already said, and that of those with whom I acted, has been, to prevent the sanction of all or any of these new projects, by authority of law, until another Congress should be elected, which might express the will of the people formed after the present state of things arose. In this object we have succeeded. If we have done little positive good, we have at least prevented the introduction and establishment of new theories and new contrivances, and we have preserved the Constitution, in this respect, entire. No surrender or abandonment of important powers is, as yet, indorsed on the parchment of that instrument. No new clause is appended to it, making its provisions a mere non obstante to executive discretion. It has been snatched from the furnace. From this furnace of party contention, heated seven times hotter than it has been wont to be heated, the Constitution has been rescued, and we may hold it up to the people this day, and tell them that even the smell of the fire is not upon it.

But now, Gentlemen, a stronger arm must be put forth. A mightier guardianship must now interfere. Time has been gained for public discussion and consideration, and the great result is now with the people. That they will ultimately decide right, I have the fullest confidence. Party attachment and party

patronage, it is true, may do much to delay the results of general opinion, but they cannot long resist the convictions of a whole people. It is most certain that, up to the present hour, this new policy has been most unfavorably received. State after State has fallen off from the ranks of the administration, on account of its promulgation, and of the persevering attempt to raise upon it a system of legal, practical administration. The message of September completed the list of causes necessary to produce a popular revolution in sentiment in Maine, Ohio, New Jersey, and New York. Since the proposition was renewed, at the late session, we have witnessed a similar revolution in Connecticut and Louisiana, and very important changes, perhaps equivalent to revolutions, in the strength of parties in other States. There is little reason to doubt, if all the electors of the country could be polled to-day, that a great and decisive majority would be found against all this strange policy. Yet, Gentlemen, I do not consider the question, by any means, as decided. The policy is not abandoned. It is to be persisted in. Its friends look for a reaction in public opinion. I think I understand their hopes and expectations. They rely on this reaction. Every thing is to be accomplished by reaction. A month ago, this reaction was looked for to show itself in LouisiAltogether disappointed in that quarter, the friends of the policy now stretch their hopes to the other extremity of the Union, and look for it in Maine. In my opinion, Gentlemen, there can be no reaction which can reconcile the people of this country to the policy at present pursued.

ana.

There must, in my opinion, be a change. If the administration will not change its course, it must be changed itself. But I repeat, that the decision now lies with the people; and in that decision, when it shall be fairly pronounced, I shall cheerfully acquiesce. We ought to address ourselves, on this great and vital question, to the whole people, to the candid and intelligent of all parties. We should exhibit its magnitude, its essential consequence to the Constitution, and its infinite superiority to all ordinary strifes of party. We may well and truly say, that it is a new question; that the great mass of the people, of any party, is not committed on it; and it is our duty to invoke all true patriots, all who wish for the well-being of the government and the country, to resist these experiments upon the Constitu

J

tion, and this wild and strange departure from our hitherto approved and successful policy.

At the same time, Gentlemen, while we thus invoke aid from all quarters, we must not suffer ourselves to be deceived. We must yield to no expedients, to no schemes and projects unknown to the Constitution, and alien to our own history and our habits. We are to be saved, if saved at all, in the Constitution, not out of it. None can aid us, none can aid the country, by any thing in the nature of mere political project, nor can any devices supply the place of regular constitutional administration. It was to prevent, or to remedy, such a state of things as now exists, that the Constitution was formed and adopted. The time when there is a disordered currency, and a distracted commerce, is the very time when its agency is required; and I hope those who wish for a restoration of general prosperity will look steadily to the light which the Constitution sheds on the path of duty.

As to you and me, fellow-citizens, our course is not doubtful. However others may decide, we hold on to the Constitution, and to all its powers, as they have been authentically expounded, and practically and successfully experienced, for a long period. Our interests, our habits, our affections, all bind us to the principles of our Union as our leading and guiding star.

Gentlemen, I cannot resume my seat without again expressing my sense of gratitude for your generous appreciation of my services. I have the pleasure to know that this festival originated with the Boston mechanics, a body always distinguished, always honored, always patriotic, from the first dawn of the Revolution to the present time. Who is here, whose father has not told him—there are some here old enough to know it themselves that they were Boston mechanics whose blood reddened State Street on the memorable 5th of March. And as the tendencies of the Revolution went forward, and times grew more and more critical, it was the Boston mechanics who composed, to a great extent, the crowds which frequented the old Whig head-quarters in Union Street; which assembled, as occasion required patriots to come together, in the Old South; or filled to suffocation this immortal Cradle of American Liberty.

When Independence was achieved, their course was alike in