councils of his country, which he so well served and adorned, a victim to political rivals, who feared the superiority of his genius, and felt little of the loftiness of his spirit. Are the sacred institutions of our country to be thus disgraced for the purposes of political success? Are the characters of men to be attacked under the pretext of legislative privilege? Are the executive sessions of the American Senate to be turned, by an accidental majority, into the clandestine inquisition of a political junto? How is a citizen to defend himself from false aspersions, when his actions are perverted, his sentiments misrepresented, or slanders uttered against him, unknown to himself, or to which he is not allowed to reply? How is he to be protected against discussions not carried on before the face of day? Why are not the men, who thus give their votes, and pass their sentence of condemnation, called upon to make their charges where they may be fully known, and, if they can be, fairly repelled? It never was the meaning of the constitution, it never was consistent with the feelings or spirit of the American people, that a secret conclave should pass upon its citizens unheard; should listen to the whispers of enmity or slander; should receive the letters of private informers, or be tutored by the instructions of personal malignity. As well might we witness in our republic such days as those, the most odious that history records, when three Roman candidates for power, selfishness just suppressing their bitter rivalry and distrust, met together on a little island, mutually to denounce and proscribe the spirits they could not subdue. As well might we see erected, amid the gorgeous columns of our own capitol, the lion's mouth that is now closed, even in the halls of a Venetian senate, and surrender our characters and honor to the secret malice of political opponents or personal foes.

Nothing proves, fellow citizens, more clearly, that the contest we are now waging, is one in which these political leaders know that they are struggling desperately for power, than the intemperate language of their debates, and the want of manly feeling displayed so repeatedly on the floor of congress. I do not allude to the coarse slanders of the Ewings, or the Hardins, or the small politicians, who seem to be the necessary vents of that scurrility, to which refinement of sentiment, or the impulses of genius, could not condescend. But how great must be the stake-how imperious the requisitions of faction-when she has compelled one who lately held the second station in the republic, to sacrifice

himself on her polluted shrine? What is the proper designation of a man, who could, with no conceivable motive but malignity towards a more honoured rival, state, without a blush, in the face of the American Senate, that his absence at the opening of successive sessions, was not a matter of design; could desert the political principles he had formerly avowed, and endeavor to overturn the constitution he had by solemn oaths repeatedly pledged himself to support; could seek refuge in the peaceful halls of legislation at Washington, far from the scene of strife he had himself raised, at the very moment, when, in all human probability, his braver associates would be called on to sustain with their swords, doctrines intended to subserve his individual ambition? The terms proper to designate a course such as this, I cannot condescend to use, even by following his own example, set in the august halls of legislation, and under the sanction of legislative privilege. How great must be the stake for which the bank of the United States knows herself to be playing-how strong must be the influence she has brought to bear, in her contest with the people-how potent must be the means that great machine can employ; when, as we have seen, fellow citizens, before our own immediate eyes, she can allure from its haunts, that selfishness which never before turned from a private to a public end; never before made a voluntary sacrifice in a community, where few have failed to give their little aid, to some one cause of charity, of literature or of art. To me it seems a circumstance, among the most degrading, in the conduct of the present leaders of the opposition, that those who have received large sums from the bank, either as loans or as rewards for services performed, should yet feel no hesitation to record their votes as legislators in its behalf. It is true we can scarce wonder, that men so bound to an institution, should impugn the motives of those who censure it, when unable to refute their allegations, or should indulge in petty slander on the one hand, or a natural but lamentable adulation on the other. The sensibility of a generous mind must be dead, which utters the language and adopts the arts of an advocate, while holding the position of a statesman; and who would envy that coldness, real or assumed, which affects to despise an imputation founded in truth, that cannot consist with unbiassed judgment or disinterested conduct?

While the floor of congress has thus been misused, the current business of the country has been neglected, and important measures have been suffered to sleep, week after week. Heavy ex

penses have been incurred during sessions occupied by this useless declamation or vindictive attack. Large sums have been added to the contingent fund of congress and to the public appropriations, for the purpose of upholding the publishers of partizan newspapers. The mails have been overburdened and the privileges of franking abused, in order to disseminate the misrepre sentations that were profusely poured out. It appears by official documents that the publisher of the United States Telegraph, a newspaper devoted to nullification, and the organ of one portion of the opposition, received for public printing, including the cost of paper, $106,400, in a single year, that of 1832; and that $105,000 have been advanced for, reprinting certain public documents, which is done by the publishers of the National Intelligencer, a newspaper in the immediate ownership of the bank, and the organ of another portion of the opposition. Nay more, although in the estimate furnished by the Secretary of the Senate, before the commencement of the session just closed, he requires the large sum of $18,000 for printing for that body, will it be believed that he was obliged to ask, before the adjournment, an additional appropriation of $35,500 for "printing for the current business of the Senate," making in the whole the incredible sum of $53,500 for the printing of the Senate alone, during a single session? I have not by me the statement of the similar expenditure, in the last long session of 1832, but I have that of the preceding one of 1830, and I find the amount paid for printing to be $11,408 57, or $41,000 less than the estimate of this year. Facts like these require no comment, but they must convince the people that there are other objects in printing such voluminous masses of documents, besides the mere diffusion of information among them. To the efforts thus made, by means of official situation and power, and the extravagant or improper application of the public money, are to be added the attempts to spread distress throughout a prosperous community, by harangues containing statements of the situation of various districts of country, utterly at variance with the actual situation of things. The credit of institutions has been wantonly attacked, the plans of commercial enterprize have been thwarted, and month after month has been suffered to pass away, in the hope of changing the steady purpose, and misguiding the sound sense of the people. Such, fellow citizens, is a sketch of the contest that has been

waged, and the means that have been resorted to. Innumerable facts are within your recollections, illustrating them even more clearly than those to which I have referred. They prove, in a manner not to be disguised or misrepresented, the true nature of the struggle-a struggle that can only be terminated by the voices of the people, given at the polls. They show that the cries so loudly raised about executive usurpation, the destruction of commercial prosperity, the violations of the constitution, the union of the purse and sword, are but idle declamation, intended to conceal the real object. What executive usurpation has there been, but the change of the public moneys from the bank of the United States to the state banks? Where has commerce been injured, except by the direct oppression of the former, and the panic purposely excited by its political allies? What clause of the constitution has been violated? In what single instance has the property of the people been unjustly taken from them, or the hand of military violence displayed? No!-we are not to be thus deceived. We know and see the real meaning of all this. If the charter of the bank of the United States was renewed, there would be no cry of danger to the treasury. If Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, or Daniel Webster could obtain-vain hope!-the suffrages of the people, in their desperate struggle for the presidency, instead of a candidate who shall represent the principles and wishes of the vast body of the republican party, there would be no more clamour about a violated constitution. It is to obtain these ends that all this turmoil has been raised; and that the country has been, for months past, kept in this state of unceasing agitation.

And what is the result? Is the bank rechartered, to aid in the coming contest, either directly by the influence of its money, or indirectly by its fearful power over the industry and property of the people? Have the obstacles and delays of the opposition been able to prevent the passage of salutary laws, called for by the exigencies of the country? Have the commerce and internal prosperity of the land, sunk under their prophecies, their maledictions, and their unceasing efforts to injure and destroy them? No!-the spirit of the people has not been, and cannot be, either misled or put down. The noble phalanx of the Representatives, coming directly from their ranks; the bold and unflinching minority of the Senators-a minority indeed in their body, but representing a great majority of the people; the Chief Magistrate, raised to his honorable post with an enthusiasm equalled only by that displayed towards

Washington and Jefferson; the spontaneous voice of the people, echoed from their hills and valleys, throughout the vast extent of the Union-these have so far carried us through this struggle against moneyed corruption and political intrigue; and they are the guaranties and harbingers of triumphs yet more signal. After a debate prolonged for four months, a solemn resolution was adopted in the House of Representatives, by a majority of one hundred and thirty-three votes out of two hundred and twelve, that the bank of the United States ought not to be rechartered. In spite of every obstacle and delay; in spite of repeated threats that obnoxious clauses and amendments would be introduced; the bills making appropriations for works of great public utility, and the continuance of the government, were passed. Laws to restore the metallic currency of the country to a proper standard, and to substitute a sounder medium for that of paper, were enacted. Ample provision was made to guard the public treasure deposited in the state banks, and to secure to the government benefits in the management of its funds, at least equal to those ever obtained from the bank of the United States, without the dangers incident to the employment of that unfaithful and arrogant agent; this indeed the political combination of the Senate, had unfortunately the power to thwart, but it cannot be long before, even there, the voice of the people is heard, and their will is carried into effect.

While the true servants of the nation have thus held their onward course, and secured a noble triumph over the bank and the political factions, in the legislative halls, what have the people themselves been doing, to disprove the calumnies and make vain the efforts of their foes? Over all our wide land, prosperity waves her wing; and every broad lake and winding river, the fertile prairies and the seats of commerce, prove that where men have properly resisted this system of alarm, the oppression of a moneyed oligarchy could be exerted only against those who, incautiously trusting it, or brought beneath its influence by accident or design, might be made directly to feel its heartless power. Yes, my countrymen, more than this, they prove, in a manner infinitely better than mere assertion or argument, that the sad lamentations and the mournful prophecies poured forth by selfish politicians, as if they uttered the oracles of truth, have been as entirely erroneous as they certainly were unpatriotic, unwise and unjust.

"I know an opinion is entertained," exclaims the senator from