Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2). Benton Thomas Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ by a senator from South Carolina, not now a member of this body, [General Hayne,] still applied to bankers. These bankers, of whom there were many in the United States, and of whom Girard, in the East, and Yeatman and Woods, in the West, were the most considerable – these bankers all issued paper money; they all issued currency. The act, then, of 1798, if it had continued in force, or the two bills just referred to, if they had become law, would have operated upon these bankers and their banks – would have stopped their issues, and put their establishments into the hands of assignees, and distributed their effects among their creditors. This, certainly, would have been having some relation to currency: so that, even with our limited essays towards a bankrupt system, we have scaled the outworks of the banking empire; we have laid hold of bankers, but not of banks; we have reached the bank of Girard, but not the Girard Bank; we have applied our law to the bank of Yeatman and Woods, but not to the rabble of petty corporations which have not the tithe of their capital and credit. We have gone as far as bankers, but not as far as banks; and now give me a reason for the difference. Give me a reason why the act of 1798, the bill of Mr. Sergeant, in 1821, and the bill of General Hayne, in 1827, should not include banks as well as bankers. They both perform the same function – that of issuing paper currency. They both involve the same mischief when they stop payment – that of afflicting the country with a circulation of irredeemable and depreciated paper money. They are both culpable in the same mode, and in the same degree; for they are both violators of their "promises to pay." They both exact a general credit from the community, and they both abuse that credit. They both have creditors, and they both have effects; and these creditors have as much right to a pro rata distribution of the effects in one case as in the other. Why, then, a distinction in favor of the bank? Is it because corporate bodies are superior to natural bodies? because artificial beings are superior to natural beings? or, rather, is it not because corporations are assemblages of men; and assemblages are more powerful than single men; and, therefore, these corporations, in addition to all their vast privileges, are also to have the privilege of being bankrupt, and afflicting the country with the evils of bankruptcy, without themselves being subjected to the laws of bankruptcy? Be this as it may – be the cause what it will – the decree has gone forth for the decision of the question – for the trial of the issue – for the verdict and judgment upon the claim of the banks. They have many privileges and exemptions now, and they have the benefit of all laws against the community. They pay no taxes; the property of the stockholders is not liable for their debts; they sue their debtors, sell their property, and put their bodies in jail. They have the privilege of stamping paper money; the privilege of taking interest upon double, treble, and quadruple their actual money. They put up and put down the price of property, labor, and produce, as they please. They have the monopoly of making the actual currency. They are strong enough to suppress the constitutional money, and to force their own paper upon the community, and then to redeem it or not, as they please. And is it to be tolerated, that, in addition to all these privileges, and all these powers, they are to be exempted from the law of bankruptcy? the only law of which they are afraid, and the only one which can protect the country against their insolvent issues, and give a fair chance for payment to the numerous holders of their violated "promises to pay!"

      I have discussed, Mr. President, the right of Congress to apply a bankrupt law to banking corporations; I have discussed it on the words of our own constitution, on the practice of England, and on the general authority of Parliament; and on each and every ground, as I fully believe, vindicated our right to pass the law. The right is clear; the expediency is manifest and glaring. Of all the objects upon the earth, banks of circulation are the fittest subjects of bankrupt laws. They act in secret, and they exact a general credit. Nobody knows their means, yet every body must trust them. They send their "promises to pay" far and near. They push them into every body's hands; they make them small to go into small hands – into the hands of the laborer, the widow, the helpless, the ignorant. Suddenly the bank stops payment; all these helpless holders of their notes are without pay, and without remedy. A few on the spot get a little; those at a distance get nothing. For each to sue, is a vexatious and a losing business. The only adequate remedy – the only one that promises any justice to the body of the community, and the helpless holders of small notes – is the bankrupt remedy of assignees to distribute the effects. This makes the real effects available. When a bank stops, it has little or no specie; but it has, or ought to have, a good mass of solvent debts. At present, all these debts are unavailable to the community – they go to a few large and favored creditors; and those who are most in need get nothing. But a stronger view remains to be taken of these debts: the mass of them are due from the owners and managers of the banks – from the presidents, directors, cashiers, stockholders, attorneys; and these people do not make themselves pay. They do not sue themselves, nor protest themselves. They sue and protest others, and sell out their property, and put their bodies in jail; but, as for themselves, who are the main debtors, it is another affair! They take their time, and usually wait till the notes are heavily depreciated, and then square off with a few cents in the dollar! A commission of bankruptcy is the remedy for this evil; assignees of the effects of the bank are the persons to make these owners, and managers, and chief debtors to the institutions, pay up. Under the bankrupt law, every holder of a note, no matter how small in amount, nor how distant the holder may reside, on forwarding the note to the assignees, will receive his ratable proportion of the bank's effects, without expense, and without trouble to himself. It is a most potent, a most proper, and most constitutional remedy against delinquent banks. It is an equitable and a brave remedy. It does honor to the President who recommended it, and is worthy of the successor of Jackson.

      Senators upon this floor have ventured the expression of an opinion that there can be no resumption of specie payments in this country until a national bank shall be established, meaning, all the while, until the present miscalled Bank of the United States shall be rechartered. Such an opinion is humiliating to this government, and a reproach upon the memory of its founders. It is tantamount to a declaration that the government, framed by the heroes and sages of the Revolution, is incapable of self-preservation; that it is a miserable image of imbecility, and must take refuge in the embraces of a moneyed corporation, to enable it to survive its infirmities. The humiliation of such a thought should expel it from the imagination of every patriotic mind. Nothing but a dire necessity – a last, a sole, an only alternative – should bring this government to the thought of leaning upon any extraneous aid. But here is no necessity, no reason, no pretext, no excuse, no apology, for resorting to collateral aid; and, above all, to the aid of a master in the shape of a national bank. The granted powers of the government are adequate to the coercion of all the banks. As banks, the federal government has no direct authority over them; but as bankrupts, it has them in its own hands. It can pass bankrupt laws for these delinquent institutions. It can pass such laws either with or without including merchants and traders; and the day for such law to take effect, will be the day for the resumption of specie payments by every solvent bank, and the day for the extinction of the abused privileges of every insolvent one. So far from requiring the impotent aid of the miscalled Bank of the United States to effect a resumption, that institution will be unable to prevent a resumption. Its veto power over other banks will cease; and it will itself be compelled to resume specie payment, or die!

      Besides these great objects to be attained by the application of a bankrupt law to banking corporations, there are other great purposes to be accomplished, and some most sacred duties to be fulfilled, by the same means. Our constitution contains three most vital prohibitions, of which the federal government is the guardian and the guarantee, and which are now publicly trodden under foot. No State shall emit bills of credit; no State shall make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts. No State shall do these things. So says the constitution under which we live, and which it is the duty of every citizen to protect, preserve, and defend. But a new power has sprung up among us, and has annulled the whole of these prohibitions. That new power is the oligarchy of banks. It has filled the whole land with bills of credit; for it is admitted on all hands that bank notes, not convertible into specie, are bills of credit. It has suppressed the constitutional currency, and made depreciated paper money a forced tender in payment of every debt. It has violated all its own contracts, and compelled all individuals, and the federal government and State governments, to violate theirs; and has obtained from sovereign СКАЧАТЬ