ed to pay it in cash, when that cash is demanded by the holder, be he whom he may. The question, however, is not whether, under the present administration of the Bank of the United States, the State Banks have actually been oppressed; the question is, are they liable to oppression? To this question, Mr. Biddle answers, there are very few Banks which might not have been destroyed by un exertion of the power of the Bank of the United States. Ought this power of destruction to be granted to any institution whatever? Domestic currency may be as necessary to particular States, as a general currency is to the United States; and if they do not take effectual measures to protect the rights of their own State and its citizens, they ought not to complain. The next consideration is, what modification of the present Bank, or what substitute for it can be adopted, when its charter expires? By that time, the national debt, it is to be hoped, will have been paid off, and our annual expenditure, under ordinary circumstances, reduced to TEN millions, beyond which no honest man would agree to have it extended. If a Bank is to be continued for the purpose of facilitating the distribution of the revenue, and a Bank for that purpose now, requires a capital of thirty-five millions of dollars when the revenue is twenty-five millions, a capital of fifteen millions ought to suffice, when the revenue is only ten millions. All these magnificent and mammoth plans, are the servile copies of British examples, and proceed from the British notions of the federal party. Because, in England, they had one, great, chartered Bank, connected with Government, it was thought advisable that we should have a similar institution here. They are heartily tired of it in that country, and if we have republican common-sense in this, we shall, with good reason, become heartily tired of our own. Would to heaven, the people could be made to understand the great truth, that all Government institutions are either meant as jobs for the benefit of individuals, or may be converted into that species of political bonus. Intrust your Government, therefore, with not one cent that you can withhold; a Government is the most thankless, careless, wantonly-prodigal, and unreflecting spendthrift, that buman ingenuity has ever yet set afloat to dissipate the wealth of the wealthy, and the pittance of the poor. This is not careless, thoughtless, wordy declamation; history, ancient and modern, will justify every expression; and we profess to give it as true to the letter. We agree, we cannot do without a Government; but in what country, at what period, ancient or modern, have not the people paid a most unnecessary and extravagant price for the machine so denominated, and for all the attached machinery that follows in its train? That is the best Government, that governs the least, and at the least expense, so as that the country shall be defended without, and peace and good order preserved within. If a new Bank is determined on, the first thing to be done, is to procure a Convention of the States to give to Congress the power of establishing such an institution. Hitherto, Congress has boldly usurped the power. The Constitution does not give it; the Convention refused to give it. The law establishing it, is unconstitutional and void; and on that ground may well and properly be resisted. We consider this part of the question as settled against the Bank. Moreover, constitutionality is not a legal question; all the laws of a State, and of the United States are subsequent to, and founded on the Constitution, from which every legislature derives its power. The State Constitution is not the work of the State Legislature, but of the people of each State; and the Federal Constitution is the work of the people of the United States, convened by States, represented as States, voting by States, and deciding by States. It is, therefore, like criminality, a popular, not a legal and technical question; it is for the jury, and not for the Judge exclusively, to determine. It is high time these notions should be examined, and if just, as we believe them to be, practically adopted. If a court may tell a jury, the Constitution is too technical and abstruse for you to comprehend; .leave it to us; adieu to the sovereignty of the States, and the rights of the States! Law is a science, a profession, requiring long study and practical experience. It has a technical phraseology, and technical rules, and requires, as every lawyer acknowledges, a legal understanding artificially formed, to expound it correctly. There is, therefore, good reason for the maxim, ad questionem facti respondent juratores; ad questionem legis, respondent judices. But in the Constitution, there is nothing technical; its phraseology is popular and intelligible; it is addressed by the people, to the people; it is their own compact with each other in forming a civil community. Each man is required to understand it and to conform to it. Every jury man, therefore, is competent to affix a meaning to the words used in it, and to judge of its plain intent and meaning. It contains no barbarous Latin, or old Norman French, nor is it filled with all the learning of contingent remainders and executory devises. It is the law of the people, made by the people, for the people, and addressed to the people. This essay, we trust, will be read by jurymen; and some of them will understand their rights, and exercise them, whether the technical notions of a bench of judges agree to it or not. Why is not the Constitution made a school-book? When such a Bank is again established, if it should be, the enumerated powers to which it is incidental and subservient, should be specifically detailed, with the mode and manner prescribed of executing them; with control sufficient, vested in the General Government, to prevent malversation; and the power of forfeiting the charter for misconduct. No charter should be granted for a capital so large as to give cause for reasonable apprehension to the other Banks; and in such a charter, no more power should be given, than is absolutely necessary to effect the purposes intended. But we do not believe that any such institution ever will be chartered by Congress, which has no right to charter it, unless previously sanctioned by a Convention. We see no necessity for it; and without a strong feeling of its necessity beyond mere convenience or utility, another Bank under Government auspices, would neither be prudent nor just. We are somewhat wiser now than we were in 1816, and the circumstances of that day are not likely to occur again. We do not pretend to any opinion by which others ought to be guided; but we see nothing difficult in transacting the business of Government by means of cash-paying State Banks and private Banks, with or without an establishment for treasury-certificates to be issued, religiously based on the coin actually in the treasury, and in no other way employed as a Bank. But there are so many wise and practical men, of sufficient experience, who might be consulted on the general plan and all its details, that we see no difficulty in giving permission to the present Bank to wind up its concerns, and retire. Requiescat in pace. Can we, in the United States, dispense altogether with Banks, and a paper currency? It is a difficult question. Mr. Gallatin, (American Quarterly Review for Dec. 1830, p. 490) states the whole currency of the United States at sixty-three and a half millions of dollars on the 1st of January, 1830. Considering, that, as according to Mr. Crawford, it was one hundred and ten millions in 1816, it may be well reckoned at one hundred millions now. Since it is true, that with one Bank at Paris, and one at Amsterdam, France, and Holland, and Hamburgh transact their immense commerce-countries of circulation, where the Bank is but a speck on the canvass-we see not why we may not get on without Banks. We grant that we cannot command one hundred millions of specie; and that foreign and inland bills must form a great part of the circulation; but we cannot distinctly see any necessity for bank notes. Granting even the expediency of bank notes, why not leave the trade of banking open to every competitor, with the individual responsibility of all the partners? The public will, for some years perhaps, be cheated; but even this, is granting too much; have they been so in Scotland? Are Banks any where more stable than in that country of good sense, where the system we propose has been, for many years, in full operation with the most decided success? Every Bank incorporated, is an establishment of monopoly; it is in contravention of the American System of equality; it is an unjust usurpation of power unjustly exercised, by the legislature. If we must have Banks, let them be on the free-trade system; no favour or favourites; let them, like all other speculations, be open to public competition; and succeed to that degree only which they may deserve, from a public sense of their convenience and utility. In fact, the benefit of Banks is most egregiously overrated. The great argument in their favour is, that they permit at least two-thirds of the hoarded specie-capital to leave the vaults in which it is buried, and go forth secking for productive employment, while an equal amount of bank credit answers all its good purposes. Be it so. What do we save by it? Let the whole circulating currency be one hundred millions. Let two-thirds, or sixty-six millions of this be released from a state of idleness and sent abroad to work for its own living. Let the rate at which money can be borrowed, be five per cent. A per centage, at present, sufficiently high, considering the competition-capitals of the European market as well as our own; but six per cent would make no difference in the argument. We could borrow, therefore, sixty-six millions at five per cent. or for three and a third millions per annum. Hence, the boasted saving of all the Banks of the country, supposing they traded fairly, is not more than three and a third millions per annum. It is true, the Banks will issue four and five and six times the quantity of paper that there is of specie in their vaults; but this speculating method of proceeding is not beneficial to a sound state of currency, nor to the public; though it may answer the purposes of limited liability. One hundred and thirty-five Banks with a capital of twentyfour and a half millions of dollars, have totally failed between January, 1811 and Jan. 1830. (Mr. Gallatin, American Quarterly Review, No. 16, p. 486.) The loss to the public is not confined to the twenty-four and a half millions of dollars, but extends to the whole amount of unredeemed paper issued upon that capital. We greatly doubt if all the benefits of all the Banks have compensated this single item. Of all the classes of society who suffer by fraudulent and excessive issues of bank paper, the poor, the working classes, those who live from day to day, or from week to week, and cannot afford to starve for a month together-are the greatest. It is upon them, that the system acts most severely; they cannot discern the effects of contraction and expansion; they feel the blow, but know not whence it comes. Banking, therefore, appears to us eminently calculated to increase the very greatest of all the evils of modern society, and the most difficult to be remedied the enormous inequality of the distribution of wealth, and the inadequate comforts of the productive classes. But these reflections would lead us insensibly to a train of thought, that has no business to intrude itself here. Since the preceding Review was written, the following statement of the present circumstances of the United States' Bank has been published, evidently with the intention of bespeaking the favour of the public towards that institution. As it is a valuable document respecting the affairs of the Bank, it may be well to annex it to the preceding remarks. Valeat quantum valere potes! : "To the Editors of the New-York Courier and Enquirer. At the meeting of the Stockholders of the Bank of the United States, held in Philadelphia on the 1st Sept. was opened by Mr. Biddle, who presented in detail, the situation and operations of the Bank. These explanations were full, clear, and perspicuous, and entirely satisfactory to a very numerous meeting; they pourtrayed the present very flourishing situation of this institution, and cannot but convince all, that it has been under the administration of very able and zealous managers. We learn in relation to the subjects explained, the following striking facts, which we send you in anticipation of the publication of the report, which has been ordered. "1. It appears that the stock of the Bank, so far from being in the hands of large capitalists, as has often been said, is widely diffused among small holders; That 1449 persons are holders of from 1 to 10 shares each. "So that more than one-fourth of the stock is held in the above manner. "2. That the capital is distributed for the purposes of business, between the Bank and twenty-five branches; that two offices have, since 1817, been discontinued, viz: one at Middle Town, and one at Chilicothe and nine new ones established, viz: one at each of the following places:-Portland, Burlington, Hartford, Utica, Buffalo, St Louis, Nashville, Natchez and Mobile, making an increase of seven offices in 14 years; that these new offices were selected from thirty-eight applications, and that there are now applications for thirty new branches. "That the present situation of the Bank is as follows: $3,500,000 41,600,000 800,000 14.400,0 0 22,300,000 16,300,000 11,545,000 2,080,000 |