The people of Pennsylvania have submitted patiently to the suspension of specie payments by their banks. They have bowed to the necessity which existed, and have treated them with kindness and generosity. The Bank of the United States has proclaimed its ability to resume, and our other banks are in the same situation. The necessity for a further suspension no longer exists. Pay your honest debts when you are able, is a maxim dear to the people of Pennsylvania. This duty has now become a question of morality, far transcending any question of policy. If these privileged corporations now any longer refuse to pay their honest debts, either for the sake of their own advantage, or from a desire to elevate one political party and depress another, the indignation of honest men, of all parties, will be roused against them. There will be a burst of popular feeling from our mountains and our valleys, which they will be compelled to respect. Thank God! public opinion in the interior of Pennsylvania is yet stronger than the money power. Our people will never submit to the degradation that their banks shall furnish them no currency but that of irredeemable paper; whilst, throughout the State of New York, the banks shall have resumed specie payments. Nothing could be more wounding to my own pride, as a Pennsylvanian.

If our banks should hold out, under the command of their great leader, until the first day of January next, many of them will never be able to resume. The public confidence, which their conduct since the suspension has hitherto inspired, will long ere that distant day cease to exist. No run would now be made on them in case they resume; but if they are forced into the measure by public opinion, after resisting as long as they can, the days of many of them will then be numbered. Honesty, duty, policy, all conspire to dictate to them a speedy resumption.

In conclusion, permit me to remark, that the people of the United States have abundant cause for the deepest gratitude towards that great and glorious man now in retirement for preventing the recharter of the Bank of the United States. He is emphatically the man of the age, and has left a deeper and more enduring impress upon it than any individual of our country. Still, in regard to the bank, he performed but half his work. For its completion we are indebted to the president of the bank. Had the bank confined itself, after it accepted the charter from Pennsylvania, to its mere banking and financial operations—had it exerted its power to regulate the domestic exchanges of the country—and, above all, had it taken the lead in the resumption of specie payments, a new bank, Phœnix-like, might have arisen from the ashes of the old. That danger, from present appearances, has now passed away. The open defiance of Congress by the bank—the laws of the country over and over again violated—its repeated attempts to interfere in the party politics of the day—all, all have taught the people the danger of such a vast moneyed corporation. Mr. Biddle has finished the work which General Jackson only commenced.

Not one particle of personal hostility towards that gentleman has been mingled in my discussion of the question. On the contrary, as a private gentleman, I respect him; and my personal intercourse with him, though not frequent, has been of the most agreeable character. I am always ready to do justice to his great and varied talents. I have spoken of the public conduct of the bank over which he presides with the freedom and boldness which I shall always exercise in the performance of my public duties. It is the president of the bank, not the man, that I have assailed. It is the nature of the institution over which he presides that has made him what he is. Like all other men, he must yield to his destiny. The possession of such vast and unlimited power, continued for a long period of years, would have turned the head of almost any other man, and have driven him to as great excesses.

In vain you may talk to me about paper restrictions in the charter of a bank of sufficient magnitude to be able to crush the other banks of the country. When did a vast moneyed monopoly ever regard the law, if any great interest of its own stood in the way? It will then violate its charter, and its own power will secure it impunity. It well knows that in its destruction the ruin of hundreds and thousands would be involved, and therefore it can do almost what it pleases. The history of the bank for several years past has been one continued history of violated laws, and of attempts to interfere in the politics of the country. Create another bank, and place any other man at its head, and the result will be the same. Such an institution will always hereafter prove too strong for the Government; because we cannot again expect to see, at least in our day, another Andrew Jackson in the Presidential chair. On the other hand, should such a bank, wielding the moneyed power of the country, form an alliance with the political power, and that is the natural position of the parties, their combined influence would govern the Union, and liberty might become an empty name.

Mr. Buchanan said he had never enjoyed many triumphs, and therefore he prized the more highly the one which he had won this day. He had forced the honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] to break that determined silence which had hitherto sealed his lips on the subject of this bill. Thus, said Mr. B., I have adorned my brow with a solitary sprig of laurel. Not one word was he to utter upon the present occasion. This he had announced publicly.

[Here Mr. Clay dissented.]

Mr. Buchanan. I thought he had announced the other day his determination not to debate the question, and stated this as the reason why he propounded to the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Wall] the question whether, in his opinion, John Brockenbrough and Albert Gallatin could be constitutionally punished by Congress for re-issuing the old notes of the Bank of the United States.

[Mr. Clay again explained.]

Well, said Mr. Buchanan, the Senator did intend to address the Senate on this subject, and the only sprig of laurel which I ever expected to win from him has already withered. Yet still there was an evident reluctance on his part, whichwhich all must have observed, to enter into this contest. The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Prentiss] had made an able constitutional argument in opposition to the bill. With the exception of that gentleman, and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Preston), a profound silence had reigned on this (the Whig) side of the house. The question had been propounded by the Vice President, and the vote was about to be taken, when I rose and addressed the Senate. Immediately after I had taken my seat, the Senator from Kentucky sprang to his feet, and made one of his best speeches, for it belongs to the character of his mind to make the ablest efforts with the least preparation. I will venture to say he had not intended to make that speech when he entered the Senate chamber this morning.

[Mr. Clay admitted this to be the fact.]

Then, said Mr. Buchanan, I have succeeded, and my sprig of laurel is again green.

The gentleman says I may hang Nick Biddle, if I please; but I please to do no such thing. I would be sorry to subject him even to the punishment of imprisonment denounced by this bill; and if he should ever be convicted under its provisions, I hope the court may content itself with the infliction of a mere pecuniary fine. Hang Nick Biddle, indeed! I wish to keep him for the service of the Whig party, should they ever come into power. The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Preston] had said, at the extra session, that Mr. Biddle, if appointed Secretary of the Treasury, would, in thirty or sixty days, I forget which, heal all the disorders in the currency, and remove all the financial embarrassments of the Government. His appointment would prove a sovereign panacea for all existing evils. Now I go for this administration both from principle and inclination, and shall support the re-election of the present President; but if I were a Whig, the Senator from Kentucky would be my first choice. I should, therefore, be very sorry to deprive him of the services of Mr. Biddle, who will make, in the opinion of the Senator’s friend from South Carolina, the very best Secretary of the Treasury in the whole country.

The Senator from Kentucky asks me why I do not defend Mr. Biddle, a distinguished citizen of my own State. My answer is at hand. I cannot defend his conduct as president of the bank, because I believe it to be wholly indefensible; and he has been attacked in no other character. I should have been proud and happy to undertake this task, could I have performed it consistently with my conscience. But why does the Senator propound such a question to me? I confidently expected Mr. Biddle would have been defended by a much more eloquent tongue. I defend him! when the eloquent gentlemen all around me are his own peculiar friends; and yet, strange to tell, not one of them has attempted to justify his conduct. “But yesterday he might have stood against the world.” “He has fallen, fallen from his high estate.” Whence this ominous silence? I wished to hear him defended, if it could be done, by gentlemen of his own political party, who have never hitherto shrunk from such a responsibility.

The Senator asserts that the Bank of the United States is no longer in existence. But are not the president, directors, and officers, the same that they were under the old charter? Has it not branch banks in at least two States—Louisiana and Georgia—and branch agencies scattered over the rest of the Union? And to render its continued existence still more palpable, has it not seized all the notes of the old bank, good, bad, and indifferent, and converted them to its own use? Why, sir, according to its very last return, it has but little more than three hundred thousand dollars of new notes in circulation, whilst the circulation of its old notes exceeds six millions. Is it not still diffusing its blessings and its benefits everywhere, in the opinion of its friends and admirers? Why has it not, then, proved to be the grand regulator of the currency, and prevented a suspension of specie payments? If that were impossible, why is it not, at least, the first among the banks to urge their resumption? Had it acted thus, it is possible it might have obtained another charter from Congress. But when we find not only that it could not save itself from the general crash, but that it is now the great leader in opposing a resumption of specie payments, we must lose our confidence in its power as a grand regulator.

But this bank, says the Senator, is a mere domestic institution of Pennsylvania. With one of its arms stretched across the Atlantic, for the purpose of loaning money, buying bills, and regulating exchanges there, whilst, with the other, it conducts immense banking and trading operations here, co-extensive with the Union, how can it be called a mere domestic institution of a single State? Nay, more: it seems, by its last manifesto, to have taken “the great commercial and pecuniary interests” of the Union into its keeping, both at home and abroad. Sir, a single State cannot furnish employment for its immense capital. It would starve within such narrow limits. It is no more a State institution now than it was under the old charter, except that its existence as the same identical corporation has been continued by an act of the legislature of Pennsylvania, instead of an act of Congress; and that, too, with much greater powers than it formerly possessed. It never ventured to plant itself in England under the old charter. No, sir, let not gentlemen delude themselves. The old Bank of the United States still lives, and moves, and has its being, without even having changed its name.

The Senator from Kentucky asks, why pass this bill? He says it is wholly unnecessary; and whilst he admits that the present bank had no legal power to reissue these old notes, he thinks it ought not to be prevented from acting thus, because these notes furnish the best and only universal currency in the Union. The Senator reminds me of the ancient heretics which existed in the Church, mentioned and condemned by the Apostle Paul. Their doctrine was, that it was lawful to do evil that good might come. It seems we are now to have a similar sect of political heretics, whose doctrine is, violate the law, if you can thereby furnish a good currency for the people. But there was not the least necessity for any such violation. As the old notes came in, the bank might have supplied their place by circulating its own new notes. They are a better currency in every respect; because the present bank is under a legal obligation to redeem them on demand. Not so in regard to the old notes. Their immediate redemption depends upon the honor of the bank, and nothing more. I have no doubt Mr. Biddle intends to redeem them, but he may be succeeded by another and a different man. Besides, the bank may, in the course of time, become insolvent; and in that event the payment of its own notes and debts must be preferred to that of these resurrection notes. It is certain that no direct remedy can be had upon them against the present bank.

The Senator denounces the present bill not only as unconstitutional, but as the most enormous stretch of power he has ever known to be attempted. I am glad to find that the Senator has become the advocate of a strict construction of the Constitution, and an enemy to the exercise of doubtful powers. In this particular we agree. And I am much pleased to learn from himself that he does not concur with the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster] in deriving power over the paper currency of the country from the clauses in the Constitution authorizing Congress to coin money and regulate commerce. By abandoning this latitudinarian construction, however, he virtually surrenders up the power to create a national bank. The Senator shakes his head, but I shall endeavor to prove that this is the dilemma in which he has placed himself. On what ground did the Supreme Court decide the bank to be constitutional? It was because Congress, possessing the express power to levy and collect taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States, might create a bank by implication, if they believed it to be a necessary agent in the execution of this taxing power. Now will any man, at this day, pretend that the taxes of the Government cannot be collected, and its debts paid, without the agency of such a bank? I think not. It must have been for the purpose of extricating himself from this dilemma, and finding a power somewhere else to establish a bank, that the Senator from Massachusetts asserted a general power in Congress to create and regulate the paper currency of the country, and derived it from the coining and commercial clauses in the Constitution. I should be pleased always to agree with the Senator from Kentucky, and I am glad that we unite in denying the power claimed by the Senator from Massachusetts.

In regard to the power to pass this bill, I shall state the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky as fairly as I can. He says that the Bank of the United States is a corporation created by a sovereign State, and that this bill, intended to operate upon such a corporation, is wholly unconstitutional and subversive of State rights. Now, sir, if the bill were intended to act upon the bank, as a Pennsylvania corporation, I should abandon the argument. The president and directors of this bank sustain two characters, totally separate and distinct from each other. They are officers of the Pennsylvania Bank; and in that character they are beyond our control. But they have voluntarily assumed another character, by becoming assignees and trustees of the old bank chartered by Congress, for the purpose of winding up its concerns; and it is in this character, and this alone, that we have any jurisdiction over them. We do not attempt to interfere with the bank as a corporation of the State of Pennsylvania. No, sir; we only undertake to operate upon it as the assignee of our old bank. The gentleman asked if the old bank had assigned its property to individual trustees, could we pass any law to compel these trustees to wind up its concerns? Most certainly we could; because, no matter into whose hands the duty of winding up our bank may have passed, we should possess the power to compel a performance of that duty. This power of Congress can never be evaded or destroyed by any transfer to trustees made by officers created by our own law, whether the transfer be legal or illegal. Our power attaches to such trustees, and will continue until they shall have closed the concerns of the bank.

The gentleman says that the power to create a bank is one implication, and that to wind it up is a second implication, and to pass this bill would be piling implication upon implication, like Pelion upon Ossa, which cannot be done under the Constitution. Now, sir, to what absurdities does not this argument lead? By implication you can create a bank for a limited period, which you cannot destroy after that period has expired. Your creature, the term of whose existence you have foreordained, becomes eternal in defiance of your power. And this because you cannot add implication to implication. The gentleman asks where do you find this winding up power in the Constitution? I answer, wherever he finds the creating power. The one necessarily results from the other. If not, when you call a bank into existence, its charter, although limited to a few years, becomes in fact perpetual. You cannot create that which you cannot destroy, after it has lived its appointed time.

As to Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Brockenbrough—nobody pretends you can touch them or their banks by your law. The bill is confined to your own agents, acting under your own law, and therefore subject to your own jurisdiction. These agents are as much yours for the purpose proposed by the bill, as the president and directors of the old bank would have been. There is a perfect privity, as the lawyers would say, between the two; nay, there is a perfect identity. It is no argument to say that the old bank is dead; but even this is not the fact. We have extended its existence at the present session, without a dissenting voice, in either House, for the purpose of prosecuting and defending its suits, and it has always continued to elect a president and board of directors.

The Senator has asked, if the Bank of England or any of the banks in Canada had ceased to exist, and their agents in this country should reissue their old notes, whether we would claim the power of punishing them for that cause. This question, in my opinion, presents the only instance of haste and want of sufficient reflection in the gentleman’s speech. There is no analogy between the two cases. Congress never created the Bank of England, nor any bank in Canada, and therefore Congress can never claim any power to close their concerns. We assert no power except over our own bank and its trustees. We cannot interfere with the banks of the several States, much less with those of a foreign country.

The Senator thinks he has caught me in a palpable inconsistency. He says I first condemned the expansion of the banks in this country, and afterwards condemned the contraction of the Bank of England. I might have done so, in the special case of the refusal of that bank to extend its accustomed credits to the American houses, without any inconsistency; but I expressed no opinion of my own upon the subject. In stating the causes which produced the suspension of specie payments in the United States, I said that this act of the Bank of England had been condemned in that country both by their statesmen and men of business. I passed no censure whatever on the conduct of that bank, and the gentleman, therefore, need not have reminded me that it would but little regard my censure. I am content to confine my humble exertions to our own institutions at home, leaving to other gentlemen the glory of having South America on one side of the Atlantic and Greece on the other, shouting hosannas in their praise.

The gentleman asks, with a triumphant air, where are England and France at the present moment? Are they not prosperous, whilst we are embarrassed? In regard to England, I answer that money there is plenty and cheap; and this simply because business has been paralyzed by the great convulsion under which we have both suffered; and it is the capital which has been thrown out of active employment, from this very cause, which is now seeking investment at a low rate of interest. The commerce and trade of England have fallen off to such an extent that Parliament has been obliged to borrow two millions sterling to meet the current expenses of the Government. In this particular they are placed in a similar situation with ourselves. And yet after all the light which has been shed upon this subject, the gentleman still attributes that convulsion which has shaken the commercial world to its centre, to the removal of the deposits, the Specie Circular, and General Jackson.

I have but lately turned prophet; and there has been such poor success in that line on this side of the House, that I have almost determined to abandon the trade forever. In one respect I resemble the false prophets of old, because they prophesied nothing but good. This may probably result from my sanguine temperament, and my desire to look upon the bright side of human affairs. In my prophetic vision I have therefore never, like the gentleman, denounced war, pestilence, and famine against the country.

The gentleman strongly condemns the members of the present cabinet. I am willing to accord to the President the privilege of selecting his own agents and advisers, without any interference on my part. When he, or they, shall recommend measures of which I disapprove, I shall exercise my right of opposing them as an independent Senator. I do not believe that any evidence can be produced that the President and his cabinet are opposed to the credit system of the country. If this should ever appear, it will then be time enough for me to denounce such a policy. My instructions have prevented me from expressing my views at length upon this subject. They contain nothing, however, which forbid me from saying, nay I am only expressing their sentiment when I assert, that a separation of the business of the Government from that of the banks would be one of the greatest blessings which could be conferred on the country. In releasing the banks from the Government, and the Government from the banks, the interests of both parties would be promoted, mutual jealousies and recriminations would be ended, and the currency and business of the country would cease to be involved in the perpetual struggles which exist for political power.

I might say much more in reply to the gentleman, but I forbear.

Through the session of 1839–40 the financial policy of Mr. Van Buren continued to be the same. Still the plan of the “Independent Treasury,” as it was called, continued to occupy the attention of the Senate, and still Mr. Buchanan was among the ablest and steadiest of its supporters. On the 12th of January, 1840, and again at the same session, on the 3d of March, he took a leading part in the discussion of these subjects. These seven years of political warfare on the relations of the General Government to the currency, commencing in 1833 and extending into the year 1840, were a period of unexampled commercial distress; and when the two parties arrayed their forces and named their candidates for the next election of a President, the Democrats, although in possession of official power, were in a position in which the prevailing public and private embarrassments could be charged by their adversaries as the direct consequence of their measures. A great political revolution was at hand. That victorious party which claimed to have been founded by Jefferson, which nearly thirty years before its present precarious situation had carried Madison through a war with England, which had by its forbearance made for Monroe “the era of good feeling,” which had beaten the administration of the second Adams into the dust, which had twice elected Jackson and would have elected him a third time but for a sacred tradition of the Republic, which had enabled Jackson to name his successor, which filled the important offices and wielded the whole patronage of the Government, was now to be swept out of power by a popular tempest, such as the country had never known in a time of peace. It was broken in New York, it was broken in Pennsylvania, it was broken in many other States which for twelve years had been among its strongholds.

The summer and autumn of 1840 saw a popular excitement, in which there was much that history might condemn, but which the sober wisdom of history can both account for as natural, and regard as not unwholesome. There had come to be a feeling that the public men who had so long been entrusted with the Government of the country, and been sustained with so large a share of the popular confidence, who had been the peculiar friends of the people, whose party designation implied a democracy of a purer type, and a wider regard for the welfare of the masses, had grown indifferent to the general suffering.

At first, the course of General Jackson towards the Bank of the United States, his vast popularity and the influence which it gave him, enabled him and his followers to maintain their power. Hardly had there ever been a popular confidence greater than that which was reposed in Jackson, through the whole of his conflict with a moneyed institution, which a great majority of the people of the United States regarded, with him, as a dangerous instrument. But when year after year passed away and nothing was done for the relief of the prevailing embarrassment, when thousands had become bankrupt, when labor was unemployed or was remunerated in a depreciated and discredited currency, when the mercantile, the manufacturing, the agricultural classes were involved in a common distress, elements of political excitement, scarcely ever before combined, were united in a vague longing for a great political change. Then were to be seen the highest statesmen discussing before huge masses of the people the most profound questions of public finance and constitutional construction, and stump orators of all degrees, sounding the depths of popular agitation. The songs, the mottoes, the cries, the emblems of the party which had adopted the name of Whigs, a name which, both in English history and in our own, had represented popular interests against the prerogatives of government, were at once puerile and effective. They convey a scarcely intelligible meaning to the present generation, but to those who listened to and looked upon them, they expressed feelings and passions which stirred the popular heart.^[61] For once, the Whigs had laid hold of a string, coarse indeed and rude, but which vibrated to every touch throughout the land with singular force. The divorce of the Government from all connection with the currency, the disclaimer of all responsibility about the circulating medium which must be used by the people, the exclusive regard for the monetary concerns of the Government as distinguished from the monetary interests of the community, were arrayed by the Whigs as the favorite and pernicious doctrines of the party in power. In all this there was some injustice, but when does not popular suffering produce injustice?

The result of this upheaving of society was the election of General William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, as President, and of John Tyler, of Virginia, as Vice President, by a majority of 114 electoral votes. Never was a political defeat more overwhelming than the defeat of Mr. Van Buren. He obtained but 60 out of the 234 electoral votes. Of the larger States, he held only Virginia.^[62]

Mr. Buchanan’s personal position was unaffected by this political change. He had been re-elected to the Senate in January, 1837, by a very large vote, and for a full term, which would not terminate until the 3d of March, 1843.^[63] When the political “campaign” of 1840 came on, he did his part, and did it valiantly, for the success of his party and the re-election of Mr. Van Buren. The detail of his exertions would not be interesting now. It is enough to say that in the arrangements of the public meetings held by his political associates in various States, he was much relied upon as an antagonist to the great Whig leaders, and was often in one sense pitted against Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay, although it was not the habit of the time for public men on opposite sides to encounter each other on the same platform. As a popular orator, there was no one on the Democratic side who was listened to with more respect than Mr. Buchanan. But popular eloquence was not his forte. On the platform, as in the Senate, he was grave, earnest, perspicuous and impressive: but he did not kindle the passions or arouse the enthusiasm of audiences: nor indeed was there much enthusiasm to be evoked in the defence of a cause against which almost all the elements of ardent popular feeling were at the command of its adversaries.

Mr. Buchanan might have escaped from the Senate into the Cabinet of Mr. Van Buren, if he had wished to do so. It was Mr. Van Buren’s desire, in 1839, that Mr. Buchanan should become Attorney-General in his administration, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Mr. Grundy. The correspondence between them discloses that Mr. Buchanan preferred to remain in the Senate.

Dear Sir:—

The office of Attorney-General of the United States has become vacant by the resignation of Mr. Grundy. Although I have no reason to suppose that it would be desirable to you to change your present position in the public service, I have nevertheless felt it to be my duty to offer the seat in my cabinet, which has thus been placed at my disposal, for your acceptance, and to assure you that it will afford me sincere pleasure to hear that it will be agreeable to you to accept it, a sentiment in which those who would be your associates, will, I am confident, cordially participate.

Should you decide otherwise, the occasion will have been presented, and cheerfully embraced, to express the high sense I entertain of your talents, and also my confidence in your patriotism and friendship for the administration.

Please to let me hear from you at your earliest convenience, and believe me to be very respectfully and truly your friend and obedient servant,

Dear Sir:—

I have received your note of yesterday evening, tendering to me the office of Attorney-General. Whilst I regard it, with grateful sensibility, as a distinguished mark of your kindness and confidence, yet I prefer my position as a Senator from Pennsylvania to the Attorney-Generalship, high and honorable as it is justly considered. Nothing could induce me to waive this preference, except a sense of public duty; and happily upon the present occasion, this presents no obstacle to the indulgence of my own inclination. Devotedly attached, as I am, to the great principles upon which your administration has been conducted, I feel that I can render a more efficient support to these principles on the floor of the Senate than I could in an executive office, which, from its nature, would necessarily withdraw me, in a great degree, from the general politics of the country, and again subject me to the labors of the profession.

Permit me to embrace this occasion of again respectfully reiterating my earnest desire that you would confer this appointment upon Judge Porter. I believe him to be eminently qualified to discharge the duties of the station; and that it would be highly gratifying to the Democracy of Pennsylvania to be represented in your cabinet by a gentleman who enjoys so large a portion of their confidence.

With the highest esteem, I remain very respectfully your friend,

My Dear Sir:—

I have received yours of the 28th inst., and it afforded me much pleasure.

I have had a long and free conversation with Mr. Van Buren this morning on the subject of Pennsylvania politics. It was the first of the kind for some time. In the course of it I took occasion to read your letter to him, with which he was much gratified.

I impressed upon him, in the same terms I used to yourself, the absolute necessity of union and harmony between the State and national administration. I told him that if one portion of the party in Pennsylvania said they were for Paul, and another for Apollos, the great cause with which both Paul and Apollos were identified might be ruined. He expressed, as he ever has done, a great regard for you, and said he had given conclusive evidence of it by the appointment of Judge Blythe, and that he never had concealed the fact that this appointment was made to gratify your wishes. Upon a suggestion of mine, that an opportunity might probably be presented, on the 4th of July, to manifest his regard for you by giving a toast in your favor, he said he doubted the policy of that course, both in regard to you and himself. That the better mode was for both to evince their feelings by their conduct. He spoke freely of certain politicians in Philadelphia, and I have no doubt from what he said, that he will exert his influence in some manner to prevent them from any longer treating you unfairly. Upon the whole, I left him more convinced than I ever was before, that he is your friend. He made the very observation to me which I had made to you, that in the progress of the Presidential canvass, when the party became excited, the feeling which now existed against you in a few places would be entirely forgotten. Of this I am perfectly convinced, especially if the hill should pass imposing the restrictions on the banks recommended in your January message. There is no man in the State who more ardently desires this result than myself, and none who will more endeavor to accomplish it. Devoted as I am to bank reform, from a conviction of its absolute necessity, and having always expressed the same opinion on this subject, publicly and privately, this bill would place a powerful weapon in my hand. I shall have to visit Westmoreland County, on the business of my late brother-in-law’s estate, very soon after the adjournment of Congress, and I am under the impression that I can do much good there. I shall be very much rejoiced indeed to hear of the passage of this bill.

I have had a long and a strong talk with —— ——. I am confident his feelings towards you are not unkind.

The resolution of the Senate, expressing their opinion in favor of the bankrupt system will place me in an embarrassing position, should it pass the House. Had the legislature instructed me, I should obey with pleasure, because all my sympathies are in favor of the suffering debtors. If left to myself, my judgment is so much opposed to my feelings, that I believe I should vote against the bill without making any speech. The expression of a legislative opinion would probably compel me to give my reasons for dissenting from their opinion. If there be a majority of the House in favor of the measure, why not change the expression of their opinion into instructions, and then I shall be relieved from all responsibility on the subject. I made a long speech in opposition to the bankrupt bill during the first session of my service in Congress, 1821–2; and I have yet heard nothing materially to shake my ancient opinions, though I am still open to conviction. I have not yet heard from Mr. Espy.

My Dear Sir:—

The third crash of the Bank of the United States so soon after its resumption has taken us all by surprise. I sincerely hope that it has made its last struggle, and may now go into final liquidation. Whilst I regret the sufferings to which its stockholders may be exposed, I yet believe that its dissolution is necessary to the prosperity of the country. As long as it shall continue to exist, it will continue to derange the business of the country, and produce again and again those revulsions to which we have been subjected. It has ever been a lawless institution, and has done what it pleased, knowing that to destroy it would subject the people to evils which they would be unwilling to encounter. We ought to rejoice that it has now destroyed itself. I most sincerely hope that you may take this view of the subject; and adhere strictly, as I have no doubt you will, to your opposition to permitting the banks to issue notes under five dollars.

As a sincere friend, both personally and politically, I have deemed it to be my duty to make these suggestions, and I have no doubt you will receive them as they are intended.

My Dear Sir:—

Sitting “solitary and alone” in my private room, the thought has just struck me that I would address you a few lines. If I were capable of envying any man, I should envy the position in which you are now placed. The eyes of the Democracy of the whole Union are now directed towards you with intense anxiety; and all you have to do to render yourself an object of their respect and admiration is to adhere firmly to your avowed principles. That you will adopt this course, I have not the shadow of a doubt.

To put down the Bank of the United States will be a measure of the greatest relief to the State. It has not strength enough to assist the people; but must exist by borrowing money and crippling other institutions. If it were out of the way, the other State institutions might safely be left to the people of the State. And I firmly believe there would be no serious attempt to forfeit their charters. The Bank of the United States makes a merit of having loaned large sums to the State government, when, by this means, it has preserved its existence this long. It exchanged its own paper for what would command specie, and enable it to raise money abroad. Whilst, therefore, I feel for the distress of those whom it has ruined, I believe its going into liquidation would be the best relief measure which could be adopted. It may occasion much suffering for the present; but this will soon be over, and all may then again hope to see settled times.

When I sat down, I wanted to say a word against small notes; but I am interrupted and must stop.

My Dear Sir:—

I most sincerely sympathize with you in your domestic afflictions, and trust that He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb may comfort and sustain your daughter in her distress.

I reciprocate your congratulations on our recent victory with all my heart. It is a great moral triumph. After the late Presidential election many, who had formerly felt an abiding confidence in the integrity and intelligence of the people, began to waver. The ridiculous mummeries which apparently had an effect upon them were insults to their understanding. But nobly have they redeemed themselves, and have proved to the world that if they can be made to slumber over their rights for a moment, they are certain to awake with a firmer determination than ever to maintain them. Governor Porter has now a fine opportunity of distinguishing himself; and most ardently do I hope that he may embrace it. By doing his duty fearlessly, he will make a name for himself, which no other governor of Pennsylvania has ever yet enjoyed. On the other hand, should he falter, we shall lose the State, if not at the next election, at the next gubernatorial contest. He must devote himself to reforming the administration of our internal improvements, and rendering them productive; he must firmly resist any increase of the State debt. And if he does no more, he must veto every bill to create a new bank or renew the charter of an old one. These are principles on which the Democracy will insist. Besides, he ought to recommend and urge a thorough investigation of the Bank of the United States, and the Pennsylvania and other banks. The time has passed for consulting mere expediency; and the Democratic party has risen again upon its principles, and it will continue to stand no longer than it maintains them. I do not think that the Presidential question to which you allude will occasion any serious embarrassment to the party. Throughout the Union, with the exception of Philadelphia, they all appear to be alive to the necessity of forbearance. When the proper time shall arrive, the choice of a candidate will be made without serious difficulty; because I believe that the candidates who will be the most prominent are all willing to yield their pretensions, if that should be found necessary to promote the success of the great causes.

Please to remember me, in the kindest terms, to your family, and believe me to be your friend sincerely,

My Dear Sir:—

I thank you for your kind and acceptable letter, and feel much gratified that the honest and incorruptible farmers of your county have expressed their approbation of my political course. To live in their esteem would be a high reward.

The second bank bill, or “kite-flying fiscality,” is now before President Tyler, and I have no doubt but that it will share the fate of its predecessor. Should the second veto be of a firm and manly character, precluding all hope of the establishment of a national bank during the present Presidential term, it will be, as it ought to be, hailed with enthusiasm by the Democratic party. In Congress we shall pursue the straight line of political duty, and shall yield the measures of the President, so far as they may be in accordance with our principles, a cheerful and hearty support. As to President-making, we shall leave that to the people, where it ought to be left.

I should be pleased to see you established as the editor of a Democratic paper. That is a much more honorable and independent vocation than to be hanging about the public offices here as a subordinate clerk. Should you become the editor of the Mercury, however, whilst I am deeply sensible of your kindness, I would not wish you to bring out my name as a candidate for the Presidency. It is yet too soon to agitate this question in the public journals; and any premature movement would only injure the individual it was intended to benefit. Besides, I have no ambitious longings on this subject. Let events take their course; and my only desire is, that at the proper time, the individual may be selected as our candidate, who will best promote the success of the party and its principles.

I am rejoiced at our flattering prospects in Pennsylvania. Should the Keystone State come “booming” into the Democratic line in October next, by a handsome majority, this auspicious event will do much to prostrate the present Whig party.

With sentiments of regard, I remain your friend,