members, and at great length vindicated the propriety of their course, in exposing the malpractices of the Bank. He adds, that as Mr. Bayard had resigned, if the Senate did not confirm the present nomination, the Government would have no Director in the Board.

On the first of May, Mr. Tyler, on behalf of the Committee of Finance, in the Senate, made a report on the renomination of Mr. Gilpin and others, in which he insists that while the President disclaimed any right to inquire into the reasons of the Senate for rejecting the nominees, it is yet more clear that he could not assume those reasons. They rest the propriety of the Senate's course altogether upon its constitutional rights, but at the same time suggest that renominations should be cautiously and sparingly made; and state that, during the Administrations of Washington, Adams and Jefferson, there had been no instance of a renomination.

They refused their assent to the appointment of the four persons renominated, by the vote of thirty to eleven, and ordered the proceedings of the Senate to be printed.'

When one considers the array of names on either side of this memorable controversy, it is impossible not to believe that here, as in most disputes in which the feelings of men mingle with their opinions, neither party was wholly right, and neither wholly wrong; and after the lapse of more than twenty years, it may not be too soon to see the errors of both.

Of the course pursued by General Jackson towards the Bank, decisive majorities in Congress against him for three successive years, composed partly of his personal and political friends, can leave no rational doubt that his

1

Register of Debates, Vol. X., Part IV., Appendix, page 316.

course was at once arbitrary and injurious to the public interests.

Of the course pursued by the Bank, let us now inquire how far its errors, whether of mistake or delinquency, contributed to its own downfall.

It must be remembered that, from the first, the Bank was obnoxious to popular prejudice from two causes: one was, that it was deemed to be unconstitutional by that party which was, if not the greatest in weight and influence, the most numerous in the country: the other was, that, on account of its great wealth, it was naturally an object of envy and odium with the multitude.

With these inherent sources of jealousy and ill-will, it behoved that institution to exercise its powers and functions with great caution and forbearance. They should seem never to be used except in the service of the Government, or for the public benefit. It very soon experienced that it had rivals and enemies ready to profit by its mistakes, whether from fault or misfortune. On these occasions, however, it always found a majority in Congress ready to act a liberal part by it-to pardon its unintentional errors, and to punish those which were more serious only by its censure.

It was, perhaps, thus induced to overrate its strength. The first direct attempt to make it subservient to the political views of the Government was on the suggestion of a New Hampshire politician, Mr. Woodbury. This was repelled by Mr. Biddle, not merely in a spirit of independence, but in one of offensive defiance. The resentment of General Jackson was thus aroused; and here began a war which never ceased as long as the parties had the power of waging it.

The subsequent conduct of the Bank was any thing but conciliatory. Its course in preventing the purchase

of the three per cents., and in demanding damages for the protested bill, have been already censured. But it went much further. Its opponents maintained that, to make its efforts more efficient when exerted against the Government, the whole power of the Board of Directors was occasionally concentrated in the President, without the counsel, and sometimes without the knowledge of the Board that it made liberal loans to editors, sometimes, it was said, on insufficient security: that it spent large sums in circulating pamphlets, to defend the Bank, and assail the Administration: that it expanded or contracted its loans, with a view to influence public opinion in elections: that it shut out the Government Directors from a share in the deliberations of the Bank, under the pretext that they were spies, and communicated to the President the proceedings of the Bank.

say that they thereby Far from it. Far from it. Some of defensible, in their self

It is not meant to pass a sentence of condemnation on all these acts, and much less to forfeited their chartered rights. them were, perhaps, entirely vindication; but then they were all capable of being plausibly assailed, and so far they were impolitic and unwise. Without doubt, the Bank suffered from the bad arguments against it, as well as those which were sound.

By the materials which the Bank itself thus furnished to its enemies for assailing it, superadded to the previous popular jealousy against it, it gradually lost ground with the nation, and consequently in Congress, which is so likely to reflect the public sentiment; and thus the majorities in both Houses which supported the Bank, from 1829 to 1832, against the wishes and efforts of General Jackson, and which majorities were composed partly of his friends, were, in 1833, converted into a minority in

the House of Representatives. Whether it had been possible for the Bank to obtain a recharter, with the strong popular objections to it, and with the increasing numbers and influence of its rivals, the State banks, cannot now be certainly known; but it is sufficiently evident that, by its own incautious and impolitic course, it co-operated with its enemies to insure and to accelerate its overthrow.

But what have been the consequences of its abrogation? Here, too, there is room for speculative minds to infer very different results.

Should we concede, as many do, that the public made a bad exchange in taking the State banks and sub-treasury for its fiscal agents, instead of the National Bank ; that the latter was a safer depository of the public money, furnished a better currency to the country, and performed the business of exchange with more economy; there is still room to question whether the nation is not, on political grounds, more than compensated for the loss of the above-mentioned benefits. The late struggle of the Bank for its existence has shown that its means are immense both for good and for evil.

The power of wealth in the hands of individuals is a very different thing from that of the same wealth when accumulated by a great corporation to the amount of many millions. The difference is that of a single shower of rain compared with the like showers so multiplied as to become a fertilizing stream or a destructive torrent: so a man armed with a loaded musket has potent means of attack or defence; but what is his power compared with that of one hundred thousand such men, who, directed by the genius of a Napoleon or Wellington, may emancipate a nation, or consign it to slavery?

A bank like that of the United States, with a capital

of thirty-five millions of dollars, possessing so much of what every one craves, may grant or deny benefits to thousands. In its ordinary business of making loans, by lending at less than the market rate of interest, as it always does, it can put money into any man's pocket. It is, however, by its influence on the community, rather than on individuals, that its power is best manifested. By expanding or contracting its circulation, it can augment or depress the value of all property at pleasure. It can, moreover, command the willing services of writers, public speakers, and the editors of the periodical press, whereby it can influence public opinion in elections, and on all political questions. As this power, from the close connection of the Bank with the Government, would, on the ordinary principles of human action, be almost as much under the control of the President as are the Treasury or Post-office Departments, it would make a fearful addition to the influence of the Federal Executive, and might seriously endanger that distribution of power which the Constitution meant to establish, and which was essential to its permanence and safety.

A number of memorials, approving of the removal of the deposits, were now presented; but they were still exceeded by the number opposed to the removal.

On the eighteenth of April, a message was received by the Senate from the President, purporting to be a protest against the resolutions of the Senate touching the constitutionality and expediency of removing the deposits. He denies their authority to pass those resolutions. They amount to a matter of impeachment, which they cannot originate, but are the tribunal for trying. They prejudge a case which they may be called upon judicially to try. All these positions, with an exposition of his own powers, are maintained by a copious course of argument; and he