Martin Van Buren

“ The balance of trade is not to be turned in our favor by creating new demands upon us abroad. Our currency can not be improved by the creation of new banks or more issues from those which now exist. Although these devices sometimes appear to give temporary relief, they almost invariably aggravate the evil in the end. It is only by retrenchment and reform—by curtailing public and private expenditures, by paying our debts, and by reforming our banking system—that we are to expect effectual relief, security for the future, and an enduring prosperity. ”

“ We have faithfully sustained the foreign policy with which the United States, under the guidance of their first President, took their stand in the family of nations—that of regulating their intercourse with other powers by the approved principles of private life; asking and according equal rights and equal privileges; rendering and demanding justice in all cases; advancing their own and discussing the pretensions of others with candor, directness, and sincerity; appealing at all times to reason, but never yielding to force nor seeking to acquire anything for themselves by its exercise. ”

“ No man in the country, in his day, respected less the absurd dogma of the divine right of kings, or regarded with more contempt the reverence paid by gaping crowds to the pomp and pageantry of royalty and to the carefully guarded relics and reliquaries of the hoar institution of monarchy, than Alexander Hamilton. He was, beyond all doubt, entirely sincere when he said, in the Federal Convention, that he "was as zealous an advocate for liberty as any man whatsoever, and trusted he would be as willing a martyr to it, though he differed as to the form in which it was most eligible;" ”

“ To maintain a distinction so desirable and so honorable to our national character should be an object of earnest solicitude. Never should a free people, if it be possible to avoid it, expose themselves to the necessity of having to treat of the peace, the honor, or the safety of the Republic with the governments of foreign creditors, who, however well disposed they may be to cultivate with us in general friendly relations, are nevertheless by the law of their own condition made hostile to the success and permanency of political institutions like ours. ”

“ Is an argument required beyond the exposition of these facts to show the impropriety of using our banking institutions as depositories of the public money? Can we venture not only to encounter the risk of their individual and mutual mismanagement, but at the same time to place our foreign and domestic policy entirely under the control of a foreign moneyed interest? To do so is to impair the independence of our Government, as the present credit system has already impaired the independence of our banks ”

“ Having always been of opinion that the best preservative of the union of the States is to be found in a total abstinence from the exercise of all doubtful powers on the part of the Federal Government rather than in attempts to assume them by a loose construction of the Constitution or an ingenious perversion of its words, I have endeavored to avoid recommending any measure which I had reason to apprehend would, in the opinion even of a considerable minority of my fellow-citizens, be regarded as trenching on the rights of the States or the provisions of the hallowed instrument of our Union. ”

“ To be allied to power, permanent, if possible, in its character and splendid in its appendages, is one of the strongest passions which wealth inspires. The grandeur of the Crown and of the landed aristocracy affords a fair vent to that in England. Here, where it is deprived of that indulgence, it maintains a constant struggle for the establishment of a moneyed oligarchy, the most selfish and monopolizing of all depositories of political power, and is only prevented from realizing its complete designs by the democratic spirit of the country.
Hamilton succeeded for a season in all his wishes. ”

“ Doubts are properly attendant on all reform, and it is peculiarly in the nature of such abuses as we are now encountering to seek to perpetuate their power by means of the influence they have been permitted to acquire. It is their result, if not their object, to gain for the few an ascendency over the many by securing to them a monopoly of the currency, the medium through which most of the wants of mankind are supplied; to produce throughout society a chain of dependence which leads all classes to look to privileged associations for the means of speculation and extravagance ”

“ Never was man more strongly pledged to the support of republican government, or more unchangeably determined to maintain the responsibilities he had incurred in that regard. Embracing with all his heart the Declaration of Independence, in which its principles were delineated with the pencil of truth, he did more than any other man to overthrow the government against which it was hurled, and to open the way for the establishment of a republic in its place. ”

“ When the Government can accomplish a financial operation better with the aid of the banks than without it, it should be at liberty to seek that aid as it would the services of a private banker or other capitalist or agent, giving the preference to those who will serve it on the best terms. Nor can there ever exist an interest in the officers of the General Government, as such, inducing them to embarrass or annoy the State banks any more than to incur the hostility of any other class of State institutions or of private citizens. ”

“ I can easily understand why a class of men, born with certain dispositions and trained to corresponding opinions, should desire such a construction of the Federal Constitution; but in the face of facts and considerations like these, I can find no explanation of the boldness with which so groundless a pretension has been advanced, other than in the recklessness by which the spirit of political encroachment is and will be characterized as long as it finds facilities for its gratification in the weakness or the passions of mankind. ”

“ Our own experience and also that of other nations have demonstrated the unavoidable and fearful rapidity with which a public debt is increased when the Government has once surrendered itself to the ruinous practice of supplying its supposed necessities by new loans. The struggle, therefore, on our part to be successful must be made at the threshold. To make our efforts effective, severe economy is necessary. This is the surest provision for the national welfare, and it is at the same time the best preservative of the principles on which our institutions rest. ”

“ It would have been well for the country if the injurious effects of Hamilton's policy and principles had been confined to his own times, but men of such rare genius, distinguished by the same eagerness, industry, and energy in pursuit of their objects, seldom fail to leave a durable mark upon the world in which they have bustled, especially when their day is contemporaneous with the commencement of a new government, and when they are intrusted with great power, as was emphatically the case with Hamilton. ”

“ Each successive change made in our local institutions has contributed to extend the right of suffrage, has increased the direct influence of the mass of the community, given greater freedom to individual exertion, and restricted more and more the powers of Government; yet the intelligence, prudence, and patriotism of the people have kept pace with this augmented responsibility. In no country has education been so widely diffused. Domestic peace has nowhere so largely reigned. The close bonds of social intercourse have in no instance prevailed with such harmony over a space so vast. ”

“ Against us are the Executive, the Judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, all the officers of the government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants, and Americans trading on British capitals, speculators, and holders in the banks and public funds,—contrivance invented for the purpose of corruption, and for assimilating us in all things to the rotten as well as the sound parts of the British model. ”

“ Among the reflections arising from the contemplation of these circumstances, one, not the least gratifying, is the consciousness that the Government had the resolution and the ability to adhere in every emergency to the sacred obligations of law, to execute all its contracts according to the requirements of the Constitution, and thus to present when most needed a rallying point by which the business of the whole country might be brought back to a safe and unvarying standard--a result vitally important as well to the interests as to the morals of the people. ”

“ By an efficient government I do not mean one capable of absorbing or neutralizing the State authorities, or not fully responsible for the faithful exercise of the powers conferred upon it, or possessing more power than was necessary for the discharge of all the duties assigned to it, but one amply furnished with the ability to discharge them by its own means. To this end it was necessary that it should have competent and well organized executive, legislative, and judicial departments, and at least the power requisite to raise its necessary revenues from the people directly. ”

“ An overflowing Treasury, however it may be regarded as an evidence of public prosperity, is seldom conducive to the permanent welfare of any people, and experience has demonstrated its incompatibility with the salutary action of political institutions like those of the United States. Our safest reliance for financial efficiency and independence has, on the contrary, been found to consist in ample resources unencumbered with debt, and in this respect the Federal Government occupies a singularly fortunate and truly enviable position. ”

“ Hostile to every assumption of power over the conduct or mind of man not originally authorized by man himself, however plausible the pretences upon which it might be exerted, an opposition deeply seated in his nature, matured and confirmed by study and by all the observation and experience of his eventful career, Jefferson was not the man to submit to encroachments upon institutions he had sworn to protect, and more especially upon that branch of them which a great and free people had confided to his particular care. ”

“ An inflexible execution even of the existing statutes of most of the States would redress many evils now endured, would effectually show the banks the dangers of mismanagement which impunity encourages them to repeat, and would teach all corporations the useful lesson that they are the subjects of the law and the servants of the people. What is still wanting to effect these objects must be sought in additional legislation, or, if that be inadequate, in such further constitutional grants or restrictions as may bring us back into the path from which we have so widely wandered. ”

“ Perhaps the only question in respect to Hamilton upon which there has never been any diversity of sentiment was in regard to his talents. That they were of the highest order was the opinion of all who knew him. Jefferson scarcely ever spoke of him in his letters to Madison without admonishing him of the extraordinary powers of his mind, and in one of them he says,—"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the Anti-Republican party; without numbers he is a host in himself. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself (Madison) that can meet him." ”

“ I cannot, indeed, view without peculiar satisfaction the evidences afforded by the past season of the benefits that spring from the steady devotion of the husbandman to his honorable pursuit. No means of individual comfort is more certain and no source of national prosperity is so sure. Nothing can compensate a people for a dependence upon others for the bread they eat, and that cheerful abundance on which the happiness of everyone so much depends is to be looked for nowhere with such sure reliance as in the industry of the agriculturist and the bounties of the earth. ”

“ It is not therefore to be presumed that that instrument, after making it the President's especial duty to take an oath to preserve and uphold the Constitution and prevent its violation, intended to deny to him the right to withhold his assent from a measure which he might conscientiously believe would have that effect, and to impose upon him the necessity of outraging his conscience, by making himself a party to such a violation. The Constitution, which was framed by great men, the form of which has been so much and so justly admired, is not so imperfect nor subject to such a reproach. ”

“ In most other countries, perhaps, it could only be accomplished through that series of revolutionary movements which are too often found necessary to effect any great and radical reform; but it is the crowning merit of our institutions that they create and nourish in the vast majority of our people a disposition and a power peaceably to remedy abuses which have elsewhere caused the effusion of rivers of blood and the sacrifice of thousands of the human race. The result thus far is most honorable to the self-denial, the intelligence, and the patriotism of our citizens ”

“ They were men whose highest ambition and desire for themselves and the country was that it should have a plain, simple, and cheap government for the management of the affairs of the Confederacy, republican in its construction and democratic in its spirit,—a government that should, as far as practicable, be deprived of the power of creating artificial distinctions in society, and of corrupting and thus subverting the independence of the people by the possession of a redundant patronage. ”

“ But whether the interest or the honor of the United States requires that they should be made a party to any such struggle, and by inevitable consequence to the war which is waged in its support, is a question which by our Constitution is wisely left to Congress alone to decide. It is by the laws already made criminal in our citizens to embarrass or anticipate that decision by unauthorized military operations on their part. ”