labor steadily employed, and with parental guardianship hoarded the small accumulations of the poor. But it was in England that the gentleman saw 'the grandest work of civilized life in any part of the world'—the splendid result of her credit and banking system. Sir, while the classical and intellectual gentleman from South Carolina was admiring the Corinthian grandeur of this proud fabric of the credit system, in the ecstacy of his admiration, he forgot that he was standing on a vast ruin of violated rights; lost in his sublime contemplations, he heard not the 'accents of despair,' nor the wailings of poverty, uttered by millions who had fallen victims to the credit system of England. He had not, probably, examined the poor man's record. He could not persuade himself to believe that, amidst all this bustle, life, and splendor, all this wealth and grandeur, he was in a nation of paupers. He could see it all in his travels through impoverished France, with her metallic currency, but not in England, with her credit and banking system. Well, sir, here is that record of its results which escaped the gentleman's observation. Two millions four hundred and ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty-three families' receiving relief not included in the returns for this year.' But, it is added, in this work published by the London Statistical Society, 'judging from the results here exhibited, the paupers form the greatest portion of the whole population.' Such, Mr. Chairman, is the foundation upon which rests this 'grandest work of civilized life,' this triumphant evidence of the blessings of the English banking and credit system. "Sir, I have travelled a little, too. I have contemplated with delight the rich treasures of the Louvre and the Vatican; the sublime Doric and the proud Corinthian; but it was in the beautiful valleys of France and Germany-on the Rhine and on the Elbe-it was amidst the mountains of Switzerland and Wales, that I saw, without regard to questions of currency, or even forms of government, sound morality and personal comfort; it was these scenes that reminded me of our western paradise. And, sir, I could but regret that the tenants of those mountains and valleys were governed by that concentrated power of associated wealth which rules Governments, controls monarchs, and regulates the destiny of every nation in Europe.

"Mr. Chairman, we have a great constitutional duty to discharge. We have to regulate the coinage, and by requiring the collection of our revenue in a common medium, to secure equal taxation to the States of this confederacy, and to preserve for the whole people a measure of value of ancient origin, for labor, property, and contracts. In discharging this duty, we have not only to encounter the vices of our complicated banking systems, but also a revolution which has been going on more than a century, and one which threatens in the end to substitute a mere exchange of credits for the ancient standard of nations. It commenced with the charter of the Bank of England in 1694. This substitute first appeared in the form of notes of twenty pounds; in 1759, it was reduced to ten pounds; in 1793, to five pounds; and in 1797, the bank suspended specie payments, and commenced issuing one and two pound notes. After a fatal experiment of five-and-twenty years-fatal to the morals and welfare of the people, however necessary it may have been to Government-the bank resumed specie payments in 1822. The currency was reformed, and all notes under five pounds (about equal to twenty-five dollars) were prohibited in England and Wales. This was not, however, the most material reform.

"The restriction on banking, which had been imposed in 1708, to protect the monopoly of the Bank of England, was repealed in 1826. For one hundred and eighteen years no association could be formed for banking purposes with more than six partners. Under this system, the trade and currency of England were periodically convulsed. The great regulator of banking in that country, by its own alarms and powerful efforts to save itself, brought down country banks by the hundred in every revulsion, prostrated trade, and threw millions of the laboring population out of employment. The violent revulsion of 1825 brought about the reform of 1826; and 'with the consent' of the Bank of England, her monopoly was partially relinquished, and the great commercial and manufacturing districts were permitted, like

Scotland, to form as many banks as they pleased. England has escaped some of the violence of the recent revulsion. Her banks have not suspended specie payments. The Bank of England was not saved, as in 1825, by an accidental discovery of one pound notes! It was not because there had not been over-trading in England; far otherwise. There never was a period when there was more extensive speculation in every branch of trade, and when her capital and credit were more widely extended in every quarter of the globe. How has it happened, then, that she did not suffer as in 1825? Because the revulsion in that year broke down the monopoly of the Bank of England; because capital, freed from its dominion, flowed with astonishing rapidity into that branch of trade, and was ready to meet the sudden and large addition which speculation had made to the mass of commercial credits. Some of these associations, it is true, were embarrassed by the revulsion; the wonder is, that more were not brought down by it. They were all of recent origin; and this trade had been effectually prohibited for more than a century. These were not the only reforms. That remnant of barbarism, the usury law, was also in effect repealed, by exempting all bills having not more than ninety days to run from their operation; and this has been subsequently extended. The rate of interest, sir, is the safety-valve of credit. It should be permitted to rise and fall with the pressure upon the money market. In this country we have locked it down, and doubly prohibited the free use of capital. The inevitable consequence is periodical explosions. But with all these reforms, it is still the policy of England to substitute credit for a metallic measure of value. That credit, it is true, is not so vitiated as it was; but by making Bank of England notes a lawful tender, and by authorizing the joint stock associations to issue their notes, redeemable in these notes, they have laid the foundation for revulsions in trade, which are not yet developed. These associations had not been long enough in existence to show to what amount they could increase their circulations, though long enough to prove how rapidly they could increase them. While the use of credit, founded upon property, should enjoy absolute freedom, the abuse of credit, by issuing that which is founded upon credit, should never be encouraged by Government.

"The most powerful antagonist, however, of a uniform measure of value is our own banking system, unquestionably the worst in the world. If we had no other motive, we should be compelled to collect our revenue in a metallic currency, in order to preserve something in the country as a standard of value. We have six-andtwenty Legislatures and two Territorial Councils steadily at work, enacting laws to banish specie from circulation. The present crisis, no doubt, must produce reform; but it cannot be expected to be immediate or general, so long as our laws are made by those who entertain hostile principles of government, especially on this question of currency. It is true, there is a common conviction that our banking system is bad, and that our local circulations require reform; but when will that ever be effected if we surrender up our constitutional standard? If we do not lay the foundation here, our banking system will never be reformed. It is impossible to imagine a system more discordant, and more embarrassing to trade, than the system of the United States as a whole. Capital is not at liberty to flow into this branch of trade as in England and Scotland. Government must regulate the quantity in each State. Our State Government might, with equal propriety and wisdom, regulate the quantity of capital in every other branch of trade. And what is the consequence of this legislative interference with banking? Why, sir, two of our cities have each more banking capital than the State of New York, with her hundred cities and towns, and with more than two millions of population. The commercial emporium of the Union, the centre of circulation, the point upon which the whole fabric of commercial credit, internal and external, presses at every revulsion, is permitted to employ, in this branch of trade, some twenty millions-about one-third the banking capital of a neighboring city. Such legislation is as absurd as it is unequal. It is calculated to unregulate trade and embarrass the banks. Banking, legitimate bank

ing, is a trade, and should be as free as all other trades. Let it regulate the quantity of capital, and this branch will keep pace with all others; it will increase with the increase of commercial credits, and with the growth of trade. As the demand increases, so will the supply; and no portion of the capital of the country will be unemployed. This is the secret of the success of the Scotch banking system, which is weakened, and not strengthened, by her small note circulation.

"Currency, sir, is not a trade. Governments will be called upon to decide whether an attribute of sovereignty shall be exercised by trading companies, and, if so, to what extent. They must determine whether such companies are to be permitted to furnish the world with their credit as a substitute for a metallic standard, with liberty to increase and diminish it at pleasure; for that is the result which seems approaching. The great question to be determined is, are trading associations to be authorized to issue a species of State credit, and to collect a revenue, now amounting to six or seven millions annually, and constantly increasing, and to indemnify an abused community by producing periodical bankruptcy, poverty, and want? The gentleman from South Carolina knows that almost all the distinguished authorities are against his 'Credit System.'

"It is a conceded point, that the regulation of the quantity of currency, which is the measure of value, ought not to be entrusted to those whose profits are increased by abusing the trust. You might as well at once surrender to these corporations the power to regulate the value of our coin, and let them adulterate it, or arbitrarily raise its nominal value at their pleasure, as monarchs formerly did, to the ruin of their people. Upon what ground is it that Government have been induced to give their aid in substituting the paper of trading companies for the current coin of the world? An increasing demand for a medium of circulation and a deficiency of the precious metals. The former is admitted, the latter I deny; and on neither ground can these issues be defended. Sir, there has been no age of the world when it was so abundantly supplied with circulation, independent of all the small notes, (I mean under fifty or one hundred dollars, ) in Europe and America. How is it with the precious metals? In the work referred to by the gentleman from South Carolina, the quantity of money in the Augustan age is estimated at less than two thousand millions. Why, sir, since 1492, we have drawn from the American mines alone, more than six thousand millions of dollars, and the aggregate of coin, bullion, and plate in the world, is estimated at from seven to ten thousand millions. The quantity of specie might have been an object of solicitude in earlier ages; but of what consequence is it now, when, for all its great offices, we have discovered other substitutes? We have discovered a mine richer than all the mines of Mexico and Peru-the human mind. We have drawn from that inexhaustible mine countless millions of substitutes for specie, in the form of public debts, bank stocks, and stocks of every kind; of bills of exchange, notes of hand, bank drafts, and bank checks. These are our circulations which give velocity to trade. It is these, amounting to thousands of millions, which have accelerated the growth of wealth among nations, and not the contemptible amount of your small note circulations in Great Britain, Ireland, and America. In the present age, trade provides its own substitutes for specie, in adjusting balances not only between States and nations, but between individuals, and without the agency of bank notes. Specie is only wanted to adjust balances between nations when credit is suddenly destroyed. It is, however, wanted in every country as a standard for local circulation, and to sustain the increasing amount of commercial credit. The value of property is sufficiently affected by credit founded upon credit, in the form of bills of exchange, without extending this abuse of credit in the form of currency. The former we cannot reach by legislation, and we have no right to do so if we could, however injurious its operation is upon trade. The latter interferes with the currency established by the Constitution, and we should adopt every measure that we can to prevent it from destroying our standard altogether.

"This revolution may be accomplished. The precious metals may eventually be banished from the circulations of the world, and we may have no other standard than bank notes. I admit, sir, that, as a mere question of trade, it would accelerate the accumulation of wealth, and the growth of our cities. But what are the sacrifices attending such a system? Do you not lay the foundation of your cities on the ruin of your population? Sir, while we sacrifice the poor, we transfer political power from the agricultural and laboring classes of society to those thousand corporations which seem to have been, from the beginning of our free governments, the only interests worthy, in the estimation of our American legislators, to be exclusively cherished, protected, and patronized. Sir, go on with your credit and banking systems; banish the precious metals; establish your paper standard, and let the value of property and the price of labor float upon its agitated surface; let them rise with its expansions and fall with its contractions; and then, sir, gentlemen may anticipate every five years the return of the awful winters' referred to by the gentleman from Pennsylvania. One of them is now approaching-an awful winter indeed for the poor; thousands will be struck down by poverty and want. Sir, I do not ask gentlemen for their charity. I make no appeals to their humanity: but, in the name of HIM who made us all, I entreat them to spare them their taunts-do not stigmatize them-let these poor laborers die in peace and of famine, in a land overflowing with the richest abundance. Pardon these victims of your policy, should they, in their last hour, pray that their country might be delivered from your calamitous 'Credit System.'

"Mr. Chairman, upon the firmness and integrity of the people of this country, at the present crisis, depend the condition of our society, and the character of our Government. It is evidently a struggle for power by some of the corporations of this country, but, I trust, not all of them. It is a great issue; for every thing moral, social, and political, is at stake. On such an occasion, gentlemen may well discard their prejudices-republicans have been separated on party grounds, but not on principle they may readily unite when a question arises involving the welfare of the people, and the very existence of free government. In a cause so just, we have little to fear, and every thing to hope. I cannot believe, that, in the approaching contest, we shall lose one sincere friend of this administration. Some have, I think, prematurely decided upon the measure now proposed; they have denounced it without proper examination. I am sure, no sound republican can, upon deliberation, be ultimately found against it. While, sir, on the other hand, the proposition to separate Bank and State must rally and unite the democracy of this country, by whatever questions they may have been hitherto divided. They will never consent that the Treasury of the United States shall be controlled by the stock exchange of Wall street, or of the royal exchange; that the public revenue shall be again made instrumental in augmenting the disasters of the country; and that the Government shall be periodically embarrassed for want of means, by entrusting its funds to institu- ^ tions whose fate depends upon the slightest counter-movement in any part of the commercial system of the world. Nor, sir, can I believe that any sound republican is prepared to substitute the credit of our corporations for the common medium and common standard of the world. No, sir: on these questions the democracy will be found united, as they always have been, whenever the honor or the interests of their country were involved, as they are at the present crisis. Let not gentlemen deceive themselves; their victories always come with our calamities, and disappear with returning prosperity. The concentrated power upon which they depend cannot yet regulate the succession to the Presidency.

vote.

"Sir, I have detained the Committee too long. We challenge gentlemen to the Let the gentleman from South Carolina declaim over his 'iron money and black broth;' let gentlemen denounce the measure as an expedient or an experiment; let them call it a Sub-Treasury scheme, or by what name they please; but let them

afford us an opportunity to test its advantages to trade, to banks, the Treasury, and the country. We fear not the results of the experiment."

During the many years he has spent in the public service, Mr. Cambreleng has had the satisfaction to witness the successful progress of the liberal doctrines of free trade which he maintained before he entered upon public life, and the advocacy of which has been the peculiar mission of his political career ever since. For some years he was their only advocate in the New York delegation in Congress. They were unpopular, and those who administered, or who aspired to administer, our national affairs, had not the courage to avow them. The cause of commercial freedom, however, continued to gain ground at every ses sion. The late Administration was the first, since the war with Great Britain, which boldly took ground in favor of revenue duties; and we have now the pleasure, under our present purely Democratic Administration, to see restored, and in the fair way to a complete and general ascendency over the public mind, those liberal principles which our free Government was especially designed to establish and perpetuate.

REVOLUTIONARY REMINISCENCES OF AN

OLD SOLDIER.

No. III.

The Birds of Spring-The Encampment broken up, which introduces an illustration of Dutch caution and Political Economy-A sick comrade-who, with the author, is captured by the Indians—the sick man scalped-The Catskill Mountains and a new capture.

WINTER at last began to draw off his forces. The birds who came to make the announcement that Spring was on the way, were received with great joy. They visited the opening we had made in the forest, and gave us sweet music. None offered to harm them; it was voted unanimously, that birds were "liberty men." I have never killed a bird since, nor suffered any body else to when I could help it. I refused to contribute to the support of the minister of the parish because he allowed his boy to shoot robins. The boy finally shot himself. I almost wished the event had happened seven years sooner. Orders were at length given to prepare to return to the camp. This was not a very complicated operation for me-I had simply to put my gun and knapsack in order My gun was found to be minus bayonet and ramrod; my knapsack contained one shirt and a pocket handkerchief. I congratulated myself on the smallness of my load. On the day of our departure, our Dutch