Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856.

DEBATES OF CONGRESS. 631 FEBRUARY, 1835.] Ex~pungng Resolution. [SENATE. inclusive. They were all extracts of letters 6. That the distress of the country was from the president of the bank in person, to occasioned by the Bank of the United States the presidents of the branches; for Mr. B. said and the Senate of the United States, and not it must be remembered, as one of the peculiar by the removal of the deposits. features of the bank attack upon the country Having stated his positions, Mr. B. proceeded last winter, that the whole business of con- to demonstrate them. ducting this curtailment, and raising exchanges, Mr. B. returned to the resolution which it and doing whatever it pleased with the cornm- was proposed to expunge. He said it ought to merce, currency, and business of the country, go. It was the root of the evil, the father of was withdrawn from the board of directors, the mischief, the source of the injury, the box and confided to one of those convenient com- of Pandora, which had filled the land with mittees of which the president is ex officio calamity and consternation for six long months. member and creator; and which, in this case, It was that resolution, far more than the conwas expressly absolved from reporting to the duct of the bank, which raised the panic, sunk board of directors! The letters, then, are all the price of propertxy, crushed many merfrom Nicholas Biddle, president, and not from chants, impressed the country with the terror Samuel Jaudon, cashier, and are addressed of an impending revolution, and frightened so direct to the presidents of the branch banks. many good people out of the rational exercise of their elective franchise at the spring elections. [Here Mr. B. read the instructions to the two-and- All these evils have now passed away. The twenty branch banks, all dated in January, when the panic has subsided; the price of produce and business of panic-making had commenced in Con- property has recovered from its depression, and risen beyond its former bounds. The country gress ordering a third large curtailment, and an in- risen beyond its former bounds. The country gress, ordering a third large curtailment, and an in- is tranquil, prosperous, and happy. The States creased rate of exchange —this new and heavy cur- which had been frightened from their propriety tailment being ordered to meet " new measures of at the spring elections, have regained their selfhostility understood to be in contemplation against command. Now, with the total vanishing of the bank." This " contemplated measure of hostil- its effects, let the cause vanish also. Let this ity" was shown to be a mere falsehood, none such resolution for the condemnation of President Jackson be expunged from tile journal of the being intended or done; and the money thus extort- Jackson be expunged from the journal of the Senate! Let it be effaced, erased, blotted out, ed from the distressed debtors being sent to London, obliterated from the face of that page on which to lie there for a rise in foreign exchange; and the it should never have been written! Would to curious spectacle being presented that the bank was God it could be expunged from the page of all making the distress on one pretext, that. of a new history, and from the memory of all mankind. contemplated measure; while its friends in Congress Would that, so far as it is concerned, the minds of the whole existing generation should be were justifying it on another, that of a removal of dipped in the fabulous and oblivious waters of the deposits.] the river Lethe. But these wishes are vain. The resolution must survive and live. History Mr. B. then took six positions, which he will record it; memory will retain it; tradition enumerated, and undertook to demonstrate to will hand it down. In the very act of expurbe true. They were: gation it lives; for what is taken from one page 1. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that is placed on another. All atonement for the there were any new measures in contemplation, unfortunate calamitous act of the Senate is imor action, to destroy the bank. perfect and inadequate. Expunge, if we can, 2. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that still the only effect will be to express our the President harbored hostile and revengeful solemn convictions, by that obliteration, that designs against the existence of the bank. such a resolution ought never to have soiled 3. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that the pages of our journal. This is all that we there was any necessity for this third cur- can do; and this much we are bound to do, tailment, which was ordered the last of Jan- by every obligation of justice to the President, uary. whose name has been attainted; by every 4. That there was no excuse, justification, or consideration of duty to the country, whose apology for the conduct of the bank in relation voice demands this reparation; by our regard to domestic exchange, in doubling its rates, to the constitution, which has been trampled breaking it up between the five western branch- under foot; by respect to the House of Reprees, turning the collection of bills upon the sentatives, whose function has been usurped; principal commercial cities, and forbidding the by self-respect, which requires the Senate to branch at New Orleans to purchase bills on any vindicate its justice, to correct its errors, and part of the West. re-establish its high name for equity, dignity, 5. That this curtailment and these exchange and moderation. To err is human; not to err regulations in January were political and revo- is divine; to correct error is the work of sulutionary, and connected themselves with the pereminent and also superhuman moral excelresolution in the Senate for the condemnation lence, and this exalted work it now remains of President Jackson.... for the Senate to perform.

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Title: Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856.
Author: United States. Congress.
Canvas: Page 631
Publication: New York, [etc.]: D. Appleton and company [etc.]; 1857-61.
Subject terms: United States -- Politics and government

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Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856.

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