The committee controverted the statement of the president in his message, that the bank had “ failed in the great end of establishing a uniform and sound currency." He probably referred to the fact, that the bills issued by any one of its branches are not redeemed by all the other branches. To have required this, would have been inexpedient and unjust. The effect would have been to compel the bank to perform the whole of the commercial exchanges of the country without compensation.

It was not denied that the bills of the bank and all its branches were invariably redeemed at their respective offices ; nor was it denied that they were equal to specie in their respective spheres of circulation. If a Philadelphia merchant had silver instead of bank bills, he could not effect his purchases in New Orleans without paying for its transportation and insurance. These expenses constituted the natural rate of exchange between the cities, and indicated the sum which the merchant would give &s a premium for a bill of exchange, to avoid the trouble and delay of transporting his specie. And the bills of the bank would purchase a bill of exchange precisely as well as silver.

The committee adverted to the great reduction which the bank had effected in the rate of commercial exchanges; and to its having actually furnished a circulating medium more uniform than specie; which was demonstrated by the fact that a Louisiana planter, if the whole circulating medium were specie, would, in order to make purchases in Philadelphia, be obliged to pay more either for a bill of exchange or for the transportation and insurance of his specie, than it would cost to buy at the branch at New Orleans a draft upon the mother bank at Philadelphia. If, however, he did not choose to purchase a draft, he might transmit the bills to the most distant point, where, being receivable in payment of all dues to the government, persons would receive them at par; and the bank would frequently receive them at par, and always at a discount less than would pay for transporting the specie. And for purposes of revenue, the bank gave to the national currency perfect uniformity—a perfection to which a currency of gold and silver, in so extensive a country, could have no pretensions. A bill wherever issued, was of equal value with specie in payment of duties at any other place, however distant, where the bank issued bills, and the bank collects revenue.

The bank also served to enforce specie payments by the local banks, and had aided them in doing so. It had been said that the government, by making the resumption and continuance of specie payments the condition upon which the state banks should receive the government funds, might have restored the currency to a state of uniformity. Not only could not this object have been accomplished in this way, but such a copnection between the federal government and the state banks would, as the

ful a power as that of incorporating a national bank, was a cause of wonder—and the more so, since this power was more extensively questioned than that claimed for a protective tariff, so flatly denied by Mr. M'Duffie and his southern friends.

Pursuant to a resolution of the senate, the finance committee of that body also, on the 29th of March, made a report on " the expediency of establishing a uniform national currency for the United States." The committee consisted of five members, three of them political friends of Gen. Jackson, of whom was the chairman, Mr. Smith, of Maryland. The report maintained, that there existed a sound and uniform currency, both for the government and the community, furnished by the bank of the United States; and they declared the objections to the president's proposed government bank to be "insuperable and fatal," and the scheme to be “impracticable.”

A bill to authorize the general government to subscribe to the stock of the Maysville and Lexington turnpike road, in the state of Kentucky, was passed by both houses at this session, but received the veto of the president. In his message returning the bill with his objections to the house of representatives, he refers to his annual message for an exhibition of his views on the subject of internal improvements. He refers also to the opinions of Madison and Monroe on similar occasions. To justify an appropriation for internal improvement, the object must be one of common defense, and of a general and national, not a local or state benefit.

The last administration, he said, had carried the appropriating power to the utmost extent claimed for it; and it would be difficult, if not impracticable, to bring back the operations of the government to the construction of the constitution set up in 1793; assuming that to be its true reading in relation to the power under consideration.

He objected also, that the bills already passed, and those which would probably pass before the adjournment of congress, anticipated appropriations which, with the ordinary public expenditures, would exceed the amount in the treasury for the year 1830. Adding to these the amount required by the bills then pending, the excess over the. treasury receipts, (the revenue having been diminished by the reduction of the duties on tea, coffee, &c.,) would exceed ten millions of dollars.

On the question of the passage of the bill notwithstanding the objections of the president, a short, though animated and acrimonious debate arose, in which some of the president's political friends expressed & strong dislike to the veto message. Mr. Daniel, of Kentucky, had supported the measure, but was disposed to give the people an opportunity to consider coolly the objections urged by the president. His views on

Gen. Jackson. He represented a state which was friendly both to the president and to the system of internal improvements, which would yet universally prevail. The question was decided by a vote of ayes, 96,

, noes, 90. Not having received the votes of two-thirds of the house, the bill was rejected. The vote of the house on its passage before it had been presented to the president, was 96 to 87; and that of the senate, 24 to 18.

Many of the friends of Gen. Jackson, who, by his course in the senate, and his explicit assurance in his answer to the legislature of Indiana, of his adherence to the tariff and internal improvement systems, were both disappointed and displeased at this exercise of the veto power, regarding it as an abandonment of his former principles. To the south, the act was peculiarly gratifying; and it was defended by a large majority of his friends even at the north, who either declared their opposition to the system, or regarded the veto, not as evidence of hostility to the system, but simply as being demanded by the unconstitutionality of this particular measure. Southern feeling was truly represented by Mr. P. P. Barbour on the rejection, at the same session, of the Buffalo and New Orleans road bill. The house having decided against the third reading of the bill, 105 to 88, Mr. B., thinking “that the house had done enough for glory for one day, moved that it now adjourn." The house, however, on that occasion, by a larger vote, refused to adjourn.

Another bill, authorizing a subscription to the Washington Turnpike company, was also negatived at this session by the president; and two others, one authorizing a subscription to the Louisville and Portland canal company; another, appropriating money for lighthouses, improving harbors, directing surveys, &c., were retained until the next session of congress, when, in his annual message, December, 1830, he gave at length his objections to the bills, and to the system of internal improvements, and again suggested the propriety of a general plan by which an equal distribution of the surplus revenues should be made among the several states, to be used for purposes of internal improvements.

The committee, in the house of representatives, to which this part of the

message was referred, Mr. Hempbill, of Pennsylvania, chairman, a friend of the administration, made a report, February, 1831, adverse to the views of the president. The report took a minute review of the practice of the government, showing that it had been, on the whole, favorable to internal improvements. The committee had little if any doubt as to the nationality or expediency of some of the bills passed at the preceding session, and vetoed by the president. Some parts of the message relating to this subject were severely commented upon, as likely