more easily felt than described. His attachment to his friends was strong and lasting. Like Jefferson, he never spoke evil of any one, and disliked to hear others do it. He believed in democratic principles, and could not help it, and he supposed those who took opposite ground did so because they could not believe otherwise. He therefore never allowed differences of opinion on political subjects to disturb personal and neighborhood friendships. At a public reception at Ogdensburg in 1840, the writer, as a chairman of a committee of citizens, said to him, among other things: "It affords us pleasure to reflect that your whole life has been distinguished by an entire absence of those bitter and exasperated feelings which so often characterize the acts of those engaged in political controversies. Personal animosities materially disqualify the mind for judging accurately-they destroy those fraternal and national feelings which are so essential in judging accurately, and, without which, our efforts to harmonize are doubtful, and disputed questions in our public affairs will prove entirely unavailing."

To these remarks he replied: "It can scarcely be necessary to say how cordially I approve the opinion you have expressed, in regard to the spirit in which political controversies should be conducted everywhere, and particularly under institutions like ours; and I allow myself to hope that the sentiment which does you, and those you represent, so much credit, will soon become that of the whole country.”

Mr. Van Buren lived up to these professions, and it would be fortunate for our people if they would follow his example. Every man who has political or religious principles, should be firm and consistent in their support, but this should not make him the personal enemy of those who entertain different sentiments. Men who honestly entertain opinions on such subjects cannot avoid doing So. It is as impossible for all men to think alike as it is to look alike. Faults show themselves when men will not strive to understand, and will not think, but will blindly follow without doing either. This may occasion want of respect, but is no cause for hatred and persecution, and those politicians who preach and practise the contrary doctrines are unworthy of being followed,

either as the leadears of a political party, or as teachers of the charitable doctrines of the Christian religion.

In person, Mr. Van Buren was of medium size, but became large in his old age. He was always neat and conformed in dress to the usages of the times. He was no speculator or miser, but relied upon his industry for the comforts and conveniences of life. He was not poor. A counsel-fee in wild land, which he desired to avoid taking, at a future day made his circumstances easy, owing to public improvements in the State. On all occasions he used his earnings freely to sustain the dignity of the position he occupied. At the time of his death he was engaged in preparing memoirs of his own times, which he did not complete. An episode on political parties, which wanted the finish of his pen, has been published, and is highly interesting. His papers are in the hands of Charles H. Hunt, of New York, to be arranged and prepared for publication. Mr. Van Buren was charged by his adversaries with being a non-committal and managing man, but this charge had no foundation in fact. However wary he may have been in his intercourse with his opponents when not called upon to act, when business demanded an avowal, or duty required it, no man was ever more frank, open, and decided. The record of his life proves this to be true. His assumed management was simply this-he was a follower instead of a teacher of the people, and excelled his contemporaries in ascertaining the wishes and will of the people on new questions as they were arising, and shaped his movements accordingly. No man ever discovered more readily the channel in which the Democratic sentiment would flow. His pride was to go with the masses of the Democracy. It was never his policy to rule his party, but to go with it. He was sometimes in advance of the public mind in his actions, as in his efforts in favor of the canals, the abolition of imprisonment for debt, the repeal of the restraining laws which gave chartered banks a monopoly of the banking business, and in the establishment of an Independent Treasury. But the moment the disturbing causes which unsettled and misled the public mind were removed, the masses were found united and acting in concert, and sustaining him. Pointing out the acknowledged true path before the majority are pre

pared to walk in it, cannot be deemed management. It is simply early and superior foresight, in which none of his day excelled him.

82. THE SUB-TREASURY.

It is not strange that a Government springing into existence in the midst of a Revolution, and utterly without means, should do no more than appoint a Treasurer. Michael Hillegas was quite equal to the task during the Revolution and for many years afterward, of receiving, keeping, and paying out all our revenues. When the first bank was chartered by Congress, in 1791, it claimed and enjoyed the profits derived from keeping any surplus, and its successor, chartered in 1816, did the same thing, with more ample powers. During the period between 1811, when the first bank charter expired, and 1816, when the second was established, we had neither surplus nor means for anybody to keep. Keeping our money in banks had grown like a parasitic plant, and seemed to form a necessary part of the system of collecting, keeping, and disbursing the public money. There was no absolute pressure upon the point of separating the banks from the Treasury, although highly objectionable, until the charter of the Bank of the United States was about to expire. State banks were tried, and, after withstanding the hostility of the old bank and opposition of a political party, failed and sunk under their own folly. Nothing was then left but for the Government to cut loose from all banks, and to authorize a sufficient number of assistant treasurers, located where the collection of the revenue should require it, which was recommended by Mr. Van Buren at the called session of 1837. The subject, in the Senate, went to the finance committee, of which Silas Wright was chairman, who reported a bill to carry the recommendation into effect. Although an Independent Treasury had been suggested in private circles, and among others by the writer, as early as 1834, as a measure preferable to the State bank deposit system, which was legalized in 1836, which he opposed, still Mr. Wright's bill was the first practical step toward separating the public moneys from those of the banks, and keeping them in a Treasury belonging to and controlled by the Government. Out of

a floating thought, Mr. Wright gave form to a grand system, one worthy of a great and free Government, and which harmonizes with the spirit of our institutions.

This bill, as amended, prohibited the receipt of any currency but gold and silver by the Treasury, and was violently opposed by Mr. Wright's colleague and Senator Rives (both claiming to be Democrats), and every Whig Senator. It passed by a vote of 26 to 20, but was laid on the table in the House by a Whig majority. At the December session Mr. Wright again presented his bill, which passed the Senate and was again laid on the table in the House. The specie clause was struck out before the bill passed the Senate. At the December session of 1838-39, Mr. Wright again presented his bill, which passed the Senate, but was again laid on the table in the House. The next Congress, containing a majority of Democratic members, met in December, 1839. Mr. Wright again introduced his bill; it passed both Houses, and received Mr. Van Buren's approval on the 4th of July, 1840.

Here was a triumph of principle, after a persevering effort of almost three years, upon the question whether the Government should keep its own moneys, or commit them to the custody of irresponsible and exploding banks. The Whigs, true to antiDemocratic principles throughout, sustained the pretension of the banks that they ought to have the custody of the people's money, that they might speculate on it, as well as make it an active and efficient agent in defeating the Democracy at elections.

The elections of 1840 brought into power on the 4th of March, 1841, a Whig President and Congress. A session of Congress was soon called, to meet on the 31st of May, whose seventh Act repealed the Independent Treasury and the State Bank Deposit Law, leaving the administration to take care of the public money in its own way. At this distant day it seems strange that any political party could be so infatuated as to deprive the Government of a Treasury, having the necessary working machinery to make it convenient, safe, and practically useful. The State bank system could not be practically used, because the banks did not conform to the requirements of the law. They could not be trusted. The object of the Whigs in repealing the Independent Treasury

Law was apparent.
States Bank Bill.

It was to compel Congress to pass a United Such a bill passed both Houses of Congress, but unexpectedly encountered President Tyler's veto, which they could not overcome by a two-thirds vote, and the measure was finally defeated.

In 1844 James K. Polk was elected President, and Silas Wright became Governor of New York. Congress met in December of that year, and on the 6th of August, 1846, reënacted the Independent Treasury Act, which remained in force about twenty years, the Government not having lost a dollar by it. But at the commencement of the late war, on the recommendation of Secretary Chase, he was authorized to deposit public moneys with specie-paying State banks, and, on his further recommendation, the Secretary was permitted to use all the eighteen hundred new national banks as depositories of the public money. This provision was inserted to give each of them the same semblance of being fiscal agents of the Treasury that the old United States Bank had. That bank was sustained by the Supreme Court solely upon the ground that Congress had made it a fiscal agent, having the right to provide such agencies as it chose. In order to give these new national banks the semblance of ground to stand upon, Secretary Chase had to provide eighteen hundred such agents, and, as the number of banks increase, these agencies will increase. Mr. Chase and his political friends are responsible for thus adding this immense number of unnecessary agents, out of whom the Government cannot collect a dollar of constitutional money, but whose irredeemable notes they have bound the Government by statute to receive at par—they being made a legal tender to the Government, except at the custom-houses for duties.

Why was the Independent Treasury thus impaired? To get a supposed constitutional ground to stand upon. But why did Mr. Chase and his friends desire the creation of a multitude of banks, not as safe and sound as the State banks when they were authorized? Because they desired to organize and concentrate the money-power of the country to secure concerted and efficient action of those managing and controlling it in aid of the Republican party at the elections. To avoid the possibility of a counteracting