The following toast having been proposed,—“Our distinguished guest,—his manly and untiring, though unsuccessful, efforts to sustain the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws against the encroachments of executive power, and to avert the catastrophe that now impends over the country, have given him a new claim to the gratitude of his countrymen, and added a new lustre to that fame which was already imperishably identified with the history of our institutions,”—Mr. Webster rose and responded, in substance, as follows.

Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens:—I cannot be indifferent to the manifestations of regard with which I have been greeted by you, nor can I suffer any show of delicacy to prevent me from expressing my thanks for your kindness.

I travel, Gentlemen, for the purpose of seeing the country, and of seeing what constitutes the important part of every country, the people. I find everywhere much to excite, and much to gratify admiration; and the pleasure I experience is only diminished by remembering the unparalleled state of distress which I have left behind me, and by the apprehension, rather than the feeling, of severe evils, which I find to exist wherever I go.

I cannot enable those who have not witnessed it to comprehend the full extent of the suffering in the Eastern cities. It was painful, indeed, to behold it. So many bankruptcies among great and small dealers, so much property sacrificed, so many industrious men altogether broken up in their business, so many families reduced from competence to want, so many hopes crushed, so many happy prospects for ever clouded, and such 384 fearful looking for still greater calamities,—all united form such a mass of evil as I had never expected to see, except as the result of war, a pestilence, or some other external calamity.

I have no wish, in the present state of things, nor should I have, indeed, if the state of things were different, to obtrude the expression of my political sentiments on such of my fellow-citizens as I may happen to meet; nor, on the other hand, have I any motive for concealing them, or suppressing their expression, whenever others desire that I should make them known. Indeed, on the great topics that now engage public attention, I hope I may flatter myself that my opinions are already known.

Recent evils have not at all surprised me, except that they have come sooner and faster than I had anticipated. But, though not surprised, I am afflicted; I feel any thing but pleasure in this early fulfilment of my own predictions. Much injury is done, which the wisest future counsels can never repair, and much more that can never be remedied but by such counsels and by the lapse of time. From 1832 to the present moment, I have foreseen this result. I may safely say I have foreseen it, because I have foretold and proclaimed its approach in every important discussion and debate in the public body of which I am a member. In 1832, I happened to meet with a citizen of Wheeling, now present, who has this day reminded me of what I then anticipated, as the result of the measures which the administration appeared to be adopting in regard to the currency. In the summer of the next year, 1833, I was here, and suggested to friends what I knew to be resolved upon by the executive, namely, the removal of the deposits of the public funds from the Bank of the United States, which was announced two months afterwards. That was the avowed and declared commencement of the “experiment.” You know, Gentlemen, the obloquy then and since cast upon those of us who opposed this “experiment.” You know that we have been called bank agents, bank advocates, bank hirelings. You know that it has been a thousand times said, that the experiment worked admirably, that nothing could do better, that it was the highest possible evidence of the political wisdom and sagacity of its contrivers, and that none opposed it or doubted its efficiency but the wicked or the stupid. Well, Gentlemen, here is the end, if this is the end, of this notable “experiment.” Its singular wisdom 385 has come to this; its fine workings have wrought out an almost general bankruptcy.

Its lofty promises, its grandeur, its flashes, that threw other men’s sense and understanding back into the shade, where are they now? Here is the “fine of fines and the recovery of recoveries.” Its panics, its scoffs, its jeers, its jests, its gibes at all former experience,—its cry of “a new policy,” which was so much to delight and astonish mankind,—to this conclusion has it come at last.

It is with no feelings of boasting or triumph, it is with no disposition to arrogate superior wisdom or discernment, but it is with mortification, with humiliation, with unaffected grief and affliction, that I contemplate the condition of difficulty and distress to which this country, so vigorous, so great, so enterprising, and so rich in internal wealth, has been brought by the policy of her government.

We learn to-day that most of the Eastern banks have stopped payment, the deposit banks as well as others. The experiment has exploded. That bubble, which so many of us have all along regarded as the offspring of conceit, presumption, and political quackery, has burst. A general suspension of payment must be the result; a result which has come even sooner than was predicted. Where is now that better currency that was promised? Where is that specie circulation? Where are those rivers of gold and silver, which were to fill the treasury of the government as well as the pockets of the people? Has the government a single hard dollar? Has the treasury any thing in the world but credit and deposits in banks that have already suspended payment? How are public creditors now to be paid in specie? How are the deposits, which the law requires to be made with the States on the 1st of July, now to be made? We must go back to the beginning, and take a new start. Every step in our financial banking system, since 1832, has been a false step; it has been a step which has conducted us farther and farther from the path of safety.

The discontinuance of the national bank, the illegal removal of the deposits, the accumulation of the public revenue in 386 banks selected by the executive, and for a long time subject to no legal regulation or restraint, and finally the unauthorized and illegal treasury order, have brought us where we are. The destruction of the national bank was the signal for the creation of an unprecedented number of new State banks, often with nominal capitals, out of all proportion to the business of the quarters where they were established. These banks, lying under no restraint from the general government or any of its institutions, issued paper money corresponding to their own sense of their immediate interests and hopes of gain. The deposit with the State banks of the whole public revenue, then accumulated to a vast amount, and making this deposit without any legal restraint or control whatever, increased both the power and disposition of these banks for extensive issues. In this way the government seems to have administered every possible provocation to the banks to induce them to extend their circulation. It uniformly, zealously, and successfully opposed the land bill, a most useful measure, by which accumulation in the treasury would have been prevented; and, as if it desired and sought this accumulation, it finally resisted, with all its power, the deposit among the States. It is urged as a reason for the present overthrow, that an extraordinary spirit of speculation has gone abroad, and has been manifested particularly and strongly in the endeavor to purchase the public lands; but has not every act of the government directly encouraged this spirit? It accumulated revenue which it did not need, all of which is left in the deposit banks. The banks had money to lend, and there were enough who were ready to borrow, for the purpose of purchasing the public lands at government prices. The public treasury was thus made the great and efficient means of effecting those purchases which have since been so much denounced as extravagant speculation and extensive monopoly. These purchasers borrowed the public money; they used the public money to buy the public property; they speculated on the strength of the public money; and while all this was going on, and every man saw it, the administration resisted, to the utmost of its power, every attempt to withdraw this money from the banks and from the hands of those speculators, and distribute it among the people to whom it belonged.

If, then, there has been over-trading, the government has 387 encouraged it; if there have been rash speculations in the public lands, the government has furnished the means out of the treasury. These unprecedented sales of the public domain were boasted of as proofs of a happy state of things, and of a wise administration of the government, down to the moment when Congress, in opposition to executive wishes, passed the distribution law, thus withdrawing the surplus revenue from the deposit banks. The success of that measure compelled a change in the executive policy, as the accumulation of a vast amount of money in the treasury was no longer desirable. This is the most favorable motive to which I can ascribe the treasury order of July. It is now said that that order was issued for the purpose of enforcing a strict execution of the law which forbids the allowance of credits upon purchases of the public lands; but there was no such credit allowed before; not an hour was given beyond the time of sale. In this respect, the order produces no difference whatever. Its only effect is to require an immediate payment in specie, whereas, before, an immediate payment in the bills of specie-paying banks was demanded. There is no more credit in the one case than in the other; and the government gets just as much specie in one case as in the other; for no sooner is the specie, which the purchaser is compelled to procure, often at great charge, paid to the receiver, than it is sent to the deposit banks, and the government has credit for it on the books of the bank; but the specie itself is again sold by the bank, or disposed of as it sees fit. It is evident that the government gets nothing by all this, though the purchasers of small tracts are put to great trouble and expense. No one gains any thing but the banks and the brokers. It is, moreover, most true that the art of man could not have devised a plan more effectually to give to the large purchasers or speculators a decided preference and advantage over small purchasers, who bought for actual settlement, than the treasury order of July, 1836. The stoppage of the banks, however, has now placed the actual settler in a still more unfortunate situation. How is he to obtain money to pay for his quarter-section? He must travel three or four times as many miles for it as he has dollars to pay, even if he should be able to obtain it at the end of that journey.

I will not say that other causes, at home and abroad, have not had an agency in bringing about the present derangement. 388 I know that credits have been used beyond all former example. It is probable the spirit of trade has been too highly excited, and that the pursuit of business may have been pressed too fast and too far. All this I am ready to admit. But instead of doing any thing to abate this tendency, the government has been the prime instrument of fostering and encouraging it. It has parted voluntarily, and by advice, with all control over the actual currency of the country. It has given a free and full scope to the spirit of banking; it has aided the spirit of speculation with the public treasures; and it has done all this, in the midst of loud-sounding promises of an exclusive specie medium, and a professed detestation of all banking institutions.

It is vain, therefore, to say that the present state of affairs is owing, not to the acts of government, but to other causes, over which government could exercise no control. Much of it is owing to the course of the national government; and what is not so, is owing to causes the operation of which government was bound in duty to use all its legal powers to control.

Is there an intelligent man in the community, at this moment, who believes that, if the Bank of the United States had been continued, if the deposits had not been removed, if the specie circular had not been issued, the financial affairs of the country would have been in as bad a state as they now are? When certain consequences are repeatedly depicted and foretold from particular causes, when the manner in which these consequences will be produced is precisely pointed out beforehand, and when the consequences come in the manner foretold, who will stand up and declare, that, notwithstanding all this, there is no connection between the cause and the consequence, and that all these effects are attributable to some other causes, nobody knows what?

No doubt but we shall hear every cause but the true one assigned for the present distress. It will be laid to the opposition in and out of Congress; it will be laid to the bank; it will be laid to the merchants; it will be laid to the manufacturers; it will be laid to the tariff; it will be laid to the north star, or to the malign influence of the last comet, whose tail swept near or across the orbit of our earth, before we shall be allowed to ascribe it to its just, main causes, a tampering with the currency, and an attempt to stretch executive power over a subject not constitutionally within its reach.

We have heard, Gentlemen, of the suspension of some of the Eastern banks only; but I fear the same course must be adopted by all the banks throughout the country. The United States Bank, now a mere State institution, with no public deposits, no aid from government, but, on the contrary, long an object of bitter persecution by it, was, at our last advices, still firm. But can we expect of that bank to make sacrifices to continue specie payment? If it continue to do so now that the deposit banks have stopped, the government, if possible, will draw from it its last dollar, in order to keep up a pretence of making its own payments in specie. I shall be glad if this institution find it prudent and proper to hold out;[109] but as it owes no more duty to the government than any other bank, and, of course, much less than the deposit banks, I cannot see any ground for demanding from it efforts and sacrifices to favor the government, which those holding the public money, and owing duty to the government, are unwilling or unable to make. Nor do I see how the New England banks can stand alone in the general crash. I believe those in Massachusetts are very sound and entirely solvent; I have every confidence in their ability to pay and I shall rejoice if, amidst the present wreck, we find them able to withstand the storm. At the same time, I confess I shall not be disappointed, if they, seeing no public object to be attained proportioned to the private loss, and individual sacrifice and ruin, which must result from resorting to the means necessary to enable them to hold out, should not be distinguished from their Southern and Western neighbors.

I believe, Gentlemen, the “experiment” must go through. I believe every part and portion of our country will have a satisfactory taste of the “better currency.” I believe we shall be blest again with the currency of 1812, when money was the only uncurrent species of property. We have, amidst all the distress that surrounds us, men in and out of power, who condemn a national bank in every form, maintain the efficacy and efficiency of State banks for domestic exchange, and, amidst all the sufferings and terrors of the “experiment,” cry out, that they are establishing “a better currency.” The “experiment,”—the experiment upon what? The experiment of one man upon the happiness, 390 the well-being, and, I may almost say, upon the lives, of twelve millions of human beings,—an “experiment” that found us in health, that found us with the best currency on the face of the earth, the same from the North to the South, from Boston to St. Louis, equalling silver or gold in any part of our Union, and possessing the unlimited confidence of foreign countries, and which leaves us crushed, ruined, without means at home, and without credit abroad.

This word “experiment” appears likely to get into no enviable notoriety. It may probably be held, in future, to signify any thing which is too excruciating to be borne, like a pang of the rheumatism or an extraordinary twinge of the gout. Indeed, from the experience we now have, we may judge that the bad eminence of the Inquisition itself may be superseded by it, and if one shall be hereafter stretched upon the rack, or broken on the wheel, it may be said, while all his bones are cracking, all his muscles snapping, all his veins are pouring, that he is only passing into a better state through the delightful process of an “experiment.”

Gentlemen, you will naturally ask, Where is this to end, and what is to be the remedy? These are questions of momentous importance; but probably the proper moment has not come for considering this. We are yet in the midst of the whirlwind. Every man’s thoughts are turned to his own immediate preservation. When the blast is over, and we have breathing-time the country must take this subject, this all-important subject of relief for the present and security for the future, into its most serious consideration. It will, undoubtedly, first engage the attention and wisdom of Congress. It will call on public men, intrusted with public affairs, to lay aside party and private preferences and prejudices, and unite in the great work of redeeming the country from this state of disaster and disgrace. All that I mean at present to say is, that the government of the United States stands chargeable, in my opinion, with a gross dereliction from duty, in leaving the currency of the country entirely at the mercy of others, without seeking to exercise over it any control whatever. The means of exercising this control rest in the wisdom of Congress, but the duty I hold to be imperative. It is a power that cannot be yielded to others with safety to itself or to them. It might as well give up to the States 391 the power of making peace or war, and leave the twenty-six independent sovereignties to select their own foes, raise their own troops, and conclude their own terms of peace. It might as well leave the States to impose their own duties and regulate their own terms and treaties of commerce, as to give up control over the currency in which all are interested.

The present government has been in operation forty-eight years. During forty of these forty-eight years we have had a national institution performing the duties of a fiscal agent to the government, and exercising a most useful control over the domestic exchanges and over the currency of the country. The first institution was chartered on the ground that such an institution was necessary to the safe and economical administration of the treasury department in the collection and disbursement of its revenue. The experience of the new government had clearly proved this necessity. At that time, however, there were those who doubted the power of Congress, under the provisions of the Constitution, to incorporate a bank; but a majority of both houses were of a different opinion. President Washington sanctioned the measure, and among those who entertained doubts on the subject, the statesmen of most weight and consideration in the Union, and whose opinions were entitled to the highest respect, yielded to the opinion of Congress and the country, and considered it a settled question. Among those who first doubted of the power of the government to establish a national bank, was one whose name should never be mentioned without respect, one for whom I can say I feel as high a veneration as one man can or ought to feel for another, one who was intimately associated with all the provisions of the Constitution,—Mr. Madison. Yet, when Congress had decided on the measure, by large majorities, when the President had approved it, when the judicial tribunals had sanctioned it, when public opinion had deliberately and decidedly confirmed it, he looked on the subject as definitely and finally settled. The reasoners of our day think otherwise. No decision, no public sanction, no judgment of the tribunals, is allowed to weigh against their respect for their own opinions. They rush to the argument as to that of a new question, despising all lights but that of their own unclouded sagacity, and careless alike of the venerable living and of the mighty dead. They poise this important 392 question upon some small points of their own slender logic, and decide it on the strength of their own unintelligible metaphysics. It never enters into all their thoughts that this is a question to be judged of on broad, comprehensive, and practical grounds; still less does it occur to them that an exposition of the Constitution, contemporaneous with its earliest existence, acted on for nearly half a century, in which the original framers and government officers of the highest note concurred, ought to have any weight in their decision, or inspire them with the least doubt of the accuracy and soundness of their own opinions. They soar so high in the regions of self-respect as to be far beyond the reach of all such considerations.

For sound views upon the subject of a national bank, I would commend you, Gentlemen, to the messages of Mr. Madison, and to his letter on the subject. They are the views of a truly great man and a statesman.

As the first Bank of the United States had its origin in necessity, so had the second; and, although there was something of misfortune, and certainly something of mismanagement, in its early career, no candid and intelligent man can, for a moment, doubt or deny its usefulness, or that it fully accomplished the object for which it was created. Exchanges, during all the later years of its existence, were easily effected, and a currency the most uniform of any in the world existed throughout the country. The opponents of these institutions did not deny that general prosperity and a happy state of things existed at the time they were in operation, but contended that equal prosperity would exist without them, while specie would take the place of their issues as a circulating medium. How have their words been verified? Both in the case of the first bank and that of the last, a general suspension of specie payments has happened in about a year from the time they were suffered to expire, and a universal confusion and distrust prevailed. The charter of the first bank expired in 1811, and all the State banks, south of New England, stopped payment in 1812. The charter of the late bank expired in March, 1836, and in May, 1837, a like distrust, and a like suspension of the State banks, have taken place.

The same results, we may readily suppose, are attributable to the same causes, and we must look to the experience and wisdom 393 of the people and of Congress to apply the requisite remedy. I will not say the only remedy is a national bank; but I will say that, in my opinion the only sure remedy for the evils that now prey upon us is the assumption, by the delegates of the people in the national government, of some lawful control over the finances of the nation, and a power of regulating its currency.

Gentlemen, allow me again to express my thanks for the kindness you have shown me this day, and in conclusion to assure you, that, though a representative in the federal government of but a small section, when compared with the vast territory that acknowledges allegiance to that government, I shall never forget that I am acting for the whole country, and, so far as I am capable, will pledge myself impartially to use every exertion for that country’s welfare.

FOOTNOTES