Thomas Hart Benton

“ What do we now behold, sir? We behold an array in this House, and on this floor, against the policy of Washington! They seek to undo his deed; they condemn his principles; they call in question the wisdom and justice of his wise and paternal counsels; they urge against him that the guaranty bound us, and what for? What is the motive of this opposition against his measures? Why, sir, that this bill may pass; and the people, the burden-bearing people, be made to pay away a few millions, in consideration of obligations which, after mature deliberation, Washington pronounced not to lie upon us! ”

“ Money is the support and existence of the government—the breath of its nostrils, and why leave this support—this breath—to the custody of those over whom we have no control? How absurd to place our ships, our arms, our military and naval supplies in the hands of those who could refuse to deliver them when requested, and put the government to a suit at law to recover their possession! ”

“ I adjure you, as you honor their memory; as you love the cause of freedom, to which they dedicated their lives; as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention; bid its members to reassemble, and promulgate the decided expressions of your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity and honor. Tell them that, compared to disunion, all other evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all. ”

“ The head of the powers of the New World—deferred to as a model by all—the position of the United States was grand, and its vocation noble. It was called to the high task of uniting the American nations in the bonds of brotherhood, and in the social and political systems which cherish and sustain liberty. They are all republics, and she the elder sister; and it was her business to preserve harmony, friendship, and concord in a family of republics, occupying the whole extent of the New World. Every interest connected with the welfare of the human race required this duty at our hands. ”

“ It is madness to suppose that the slaveholding States would quietly submit to be sacrificed. Every consideration—interest, duty, and humanity, the love of country, the sense of wrong, hatred of oppressors, and treacherous and faithless confederates, and finally despair—would impel them to the most daring and desperate resistance in defence of property, family, country, liberty, and existence. But wicked and cruel as is the end aimed at, it is fully equalled by the criminality of the means by which it is proposed to be accomplished. ”

“ Banks which wish to make their paper a public currency: politicians who wish a national bank as a machine to rule the country. These banks, and these politicians, are the sole clamorers against the hard-money clause in the sub-treasury system: they alone clamor for paper money. And how is it with the other clause—the one which gives the custody of the public money to the hands of our own officers, bound to fidelity by character, by official position, by responsibility, by ample securityship—and makes it felony in them to touch it for their own use? ”

“ I wish to secure the Union from all chance of harm from this bank. I wish to provide against its friendship, as well as its enmity—against all danger from its hug, as well as from its blow. I wish to provide against all risk, and every hazard; for, if this risk and hazard were too great to be encountered by King, Lords, and Commons, in Great Britain, they must certainly be too great to be encountered by the people of the United States, who are but commons alone. ”

“ And the answer is, 'For all!' He was born to fill the largest and most varied circle of human excellence; and to crown all these advantages, Nature had given him what the great Lord Bacon calls a perpetual letter of recommendation—a countenance, not only good, but sweet and winning—radiant with the virtues of his soul—captivating universal confidence; and such as no stranger could behold—no traveller, even in the desert, could meet, without stopping to reverence, and saying 'Here is a man in whose hands I could deposit life, liberty, fortune, honor!' Alas! ”

“ But, sir, while practical nullification in South Carolina would be, as to herself, actual and distinct revolution, its necessary tendency must also be to spread revolution, and to break up the constitution, as to all the other States. It strikes a deadly blow at the vital principle of the whole Union. To allow State resistance to the laws of Congress to be rightful and proper, to admit nullification in some States, and yet not expect to see a dismemberment of the entire government, appears to me the wildest illusion and the most extravagant folly. ”

“ We tax tea and coffee, and send the money to Africa! We are borrowing and taxing, and striking paper money, and reducing expenses at home, when engaging in this new and vast expense for the defence of Africa! What madness and folly! Has Don Quixote come to life, and placed himself at the head of our Government, and taken the negroes of Africa, instead of the damsels of Spain, for the objects of his chivalrous protection?
The slave-trade is diabolical and infamous; but Great Britain is not the country to read us a lesson upon its atrocity, or to stimulate our exertions to suppress it. ”

“ I do sincerely believe that neither this government nor any free government, can exist for a quarter of a century, under such a system of legislation. Its inevitable tendency is to corrupt, not only the public functionaries, but all those portions of the Union and classes of society who have an interest, real or imaginary, in the bounties it provides, by taxing other sections and other classes. What, sir, is the essential characteristic of a freeman? It is that independence which results from an habitual reliance upon his own resources and his own labor for his support. ”

“ I am for restoring to the federal treasury the currency of the constitution. I am for carrying back this government to the solidity projected by its founders. This is a great object in itself—a reform of the first magnitude—a reformation with healing on its wings, bringing safety to the government and blessings to the people. The currency is a thing which reaches every individual, and every institution. From the government to the washer-woman, all are reached by it, and all concerned in it ”

“ No victim, in my judgement, is required, none is necessary; and yet you propose to bind us, hand and foot, to pour out our blood upon the altar, and sacrifice us as a burnt offering, to appease the unnatural and unfounded discontent of the South; a discontent, I fear, having deeper root than the tariff, and will continue when that is forgotten. I am far from meaning to use the language of menace, when I say such a compromise cannot endure, nor can any adjustment endure, which disregards the interests, and sports with the rights of a large portion of the people of the United States. ”

“ Can any man be disgraced and dishonored who yields his private opinion to the judgment of the nation? In this case, the country (I mean a majority) , Congress, and, according to common fame, an unanimous cabinet, were all united in favor of the bill. Should any man feel himself humbled and degraded in yielding to the conjoint force of such high authority? Does any man, who at one period of his life shall have expressed a particular opinion, and at a subsequent period shall act upon the opposite opinion, expose himself to the terrible consequences which have been portrayed by the President? ”

“ The most dangerous influence from foreigners is through money. The corruption of orators and statesmen, is the ready way to poison the councils, and to betray the interest of a country. Foreigners now own one fourth of this bank; they may own the whole of it! What a temptation to them to engage in our elections! By carrying a President, and a majority of Congress, to suit themselves, they not only become masters of the moneyed power, but also of the political power, of this republic. And can it be supposed that the British stockholders are indifferent to the issue of this election? ”

“ Coming as I do from a slave State, it is my solemn, deliberate and well matured determination that no power, no earthly power, shall compel me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and of New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us. ”

“ The darkest hour of night is just before the break of day; and, through the gloom ahead, he saw the bright vision of the constitutional currency erect, radiant, and victorious. Through regulation, or explosion, success must eventually come. If reform measures go on, gold and silver will be gradually and temperately restored; if reform measures are stopped, then the paper system runs riot, and explodes from its own expansion. Then the Bank of the United States will exult in the catastrophe, and claim its own re-establishment as the only adequate regulator of the local banks. ”

“ We are very certain their reply will be, 'No, but at what point is "resistance to commence?"—is not the evil of resistance greater "than the evil of submission?"' We answer promptly, that resistance on the part of a free people, if they would preserve their freedom, should always commence whenever it is made plain and palpable that there has been a deliberate violation of their rights; and whatever temporary evils may result from such resistance, it can never be so great or so dangerous to our institutions, as a blind submission to a most manifest act of oppression and tyranny. ”

“ Nullification, if successful, arrests the power of the law, absolves citizens from their duty, subverts the foundation both of protection and obedience, dispenses with oaths and obligations of allegiance, and elevates another authority to supreme command. Is not this revolution? And it raises to supreme command four-and-twenty distinct powers, each professing to be under a general government, and yet each setting its laws at defiance at pleasure. Is not this anarchy, as well as revolution? Sir, the constitution of the United States was received as a whole, and for the whole country. ”

“ A national bank was their life—the vital principle—without which they could not live as a party—the power which was to give them power: which was to beat down their adversaries—uphold themselves—and give them the political and the financial control of the Union. To lose it, was to lose the fruits of the election, with the prospect of losing the party itself. Indignation was their pervading feeling; but the stake was too great to be given up in a passion; and policy required the temporizing expedient of conciliation—the proud spirit of Mr. Clay finding it hard to bend to it ”

“ Rome had her Pharsalia, and Greece her Chæronea; and this republic, more illustrious in her birth than Greece or Rome, was entitled to a death as glorious as theirs. She would not die by poison—perish in corruption—no! A field of arms, and of glory, should be her end. She had a right to a battle—a great, immortal battle—where heroes and patriots could die with the liberty which they scorned to survive, and consecrate, with their blood, the spot which marked a nation's fall. ”

“ What evidence of criminality will satisfy the judge, when the act itself is no crime in his eyes, or under his laws, and when all his sympathies are on the side of the slave? What chance would there be for the judicial surrender of offending slaves in the British dominions, under this treaty, when the provisions of our own constitution, within the States of our own Union, in relation to fugitive slaves, cannot be executed? We all know that a judicial trial is immunity to a slave pursued by his owner, in many of our own States. ”

“ The temptation is too great—the opportunity too easy—to put up and put down prices; to make and break fortunes; to bring the whole community upon its knees to the Neptunes who preside over the flux and reflux of paper. All property is at their mercy. The price of real estate—of every growing crop—of every staple article in market—is at their command. Stocks are their playthings—their gambling theatre—on which they gamble daily, with as little secrecy, and as little morality, and far more mischief to fortunes, than common gamblers carry on their operations. ”

“ They worked in a body in the presidential election, and on the side of the whigs: and now attended Congress, and looked to that party for the legislative relief for which they had assisted in the election. Nor did they look in vain. They got all they asked—but most unwillingly, and under a moral duresse—and as the price of passing two other momentous bills. Such is legislation in high party times! selfish and sinistrous, when the people believe it to be honest and patriotic! people at home, whose eyes should be opened to the truth, if they wish to preserve the purity of their government. ”

“ We have regarded ourselves, not as mere agents of those whose funds have been subscribed towards the capital of the bank, but as officers appointed on behalf of the American people. We have endeavored to govern all our conduct as faithful representatives of them. We have been deterred from this by no preconcerted system to deprive us of our rights, by no impeachment of our motives, by no false views of policy, by no course of management which might be supposed to promote the interests of those concerned in the institution, at the danger or sacrifice of the general good. ”