power, the State banks were taxed out of existence, and, with trifling exceptions of those not issuing bills, none of them remain. These new national banks are Secretary Chase's children. Do not fathers always expect support from their children in their great enterprises? But we have high authority for saying that the love of money is the root of all evil. May he not find his children loving money better than their now powerless father? Experience has proved the great error of impairing the Independent Treasury Law. Before this was done, that law made it a crime to loan, use, or appropriate money in the Treasury, or to deposit it in banks. But since this unwise change, Secretaries have made pets of some of these children, and millions, when the Government was borrowing money, were deposited in favored banks, and used without paying interest. When not needed for discounting notes, these deposits have been lent direct to the Government as temporary loans at five per cent., or invested in compound-interest notes, or seven-thirty notes, or six per cent. stocks, and thus held until called for. Hence it is seen that the Government itself paid interest on moneys it had gratuitously deposited with banks. When this has not been done, such moneys have been loaned out to customers of the bank. It thus appears that this change of the Independent Treasury Law has opened the door to abuses. There has been as much as thirty millions of public moneys thus on deposit at one time, if the financial articles in city papers can be relied upon, when good management would not have allowed the deposit of one dollar in these banks. Such management and use of the public money is in direct conflict with the doctrine of equality of rights, forming a portion of the creed of the Democratic party. Keeping the public money anywhere except in the nation's Treasury, where the Government can control and use it, as required by law, is a violation of the principles cherished by the Democratic party. The Democrats insist upon keeping the public money where it can neither be wrongfully used, nor stolen, and the anti-Democrats where speculators and rogues can have access to it and profit by its use. This presents a striking difference between the two parties. 83.-THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1840. Mr. Van Buren was elected in 1836, with the hearty concurrence of popular opinion. But the smash-up of the State bank deposit system, the financial crisis and distress it occasioned, the disappointment of the speculators occasioned by General Jackson's Specie Circular, his strict adherence to our neutrality laws during the Canadian Patriot War, and the war of all the banks against him, rendered the defeat of Mr. Van Buren inevitable. The performance of every duty of his office with strict fidelity and superior ability, had no effect in staying the whirlwind, which untoward circumstances, for which he was in no way responsible, had raised against him. He was one of the best business-men ever in the presidential office, and General Jackson committed no error, when, on his death-bed, he told B. F. Butler he was the wisest man he ever saw. But neither wisdom nor merit could stay the current that was destined to sweep him away. His renomination was united and cordial, and the platform on which he stood was sound, and cordially concurred in by the Democracy of the nation. His renomination was unopposed and unanimous. At the instance of Felix Grundy and John A. Dix, the writer prepared the platform on which he ran, which the convention unanimously adopted, and which received the indorsement of every considerable Democratic convention in the United States, and has been reiterated by every national convention of Democrats since held down to 1864, and most of it was once adopted in declaratory resolutions by the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams voting for many of them. These resolutions may be rightfully considered as declaring settled Democratic principles, in which all Democrats cordially concur. They are as follows: 1. That the Federal Government is one of limited powers, derived solely from the Constitution, and the grants of power therein ought to be strictly construed, by all the departments and agents of the Government; and that it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubtful constitutional powers. 2. That the Constitution does not confer upon the General Government the power to commence and carry on a general system of internal improvements. 3. That the Constitution does not confer authority upon the Federal Government, directly or indirectly, to assume the debts of the several States, contracted for local internal improvements, or other State purposes; nor would such assumption be just or expedient. 4. That justice and sound policy forbid the Federal Government to foster one branch of industry to the detriment of another, or to cherish the interests of one portion of the country to the injury of another portion of our common country; that every citizen and every section of the country has a right to demand and insist upon an equality of rights and privileges, and to complete and ample protection of persons and property from domestic violence and foreign aggression. 5. That it is the duty of every branch of the Government to enforce and practise the most rigid economy in conducting our public affairs; and that no more revenue ought to be raised than is required to defray the necessary expenses of the Government. 6. That Congress has no power to charter a national bank; that we believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best interests of the country, dangerous to our republican institutions and the liberties of the people, and calculated to place the business of the country within the control of a concentrated money-power, and above the laws and will of the people. 7. That Congress has no power under the Constitution to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States; and that such States are the sole and proper judges of every thing appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; and that all efforts of the abolitionists or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts will have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions. DES 8. That the separation of the moneys of the Government from banking institutions is indispensable for the safety of the funds of the Government and the rights of the people. 9. That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, and sanctioned in the Constitution, which make ours the land of liberty, and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith; and every attempt to abridge the present privilege of becoming citizens and the owners of soil among us ought to be resisted with the same spirit which swept the Alien and Sedition Laws from our statute-book. The adversaries of Mr. Van Buren took the opposite side of the questions to which these nine resolutions pointed in practice, and in the shape of addresses and resolves as to nearly all of them. The resolutions pointed out the consequences which would flow from the opposite policy. By not conforming to the principles of the resolution against national banks, we have now eighteen hundred such banks; and by not honestly and firmly resisting the intermeddlings of the abolitionists in the affairs of the Southern States, we, besides destroying half a million of lives, have on our shoulders a public debt of more than three thousand millions of dollars, to say nothing of municipal and State debts, a divided Union, and a demoralized people, who are taxed beyond their abil ity to bear, simply to support the Government and pay interest. Mr. Van Buren cordially approved of these resolutions, as the Democrats did everywhere. But it was impossible to resist the combined influences brought against him. Since 1840 the Democrats have elected three Presidents, each openly avowing that he approved of the principles put forth in the foregoing resolutions. Although the questions before the public at the time were different in form, the principles there involved were the same as at the present time. The constitutional principles then declared as necessary for the protection and prosperity of the people are identical with those now under discussion before the people. The line of policy then suggested as wisest and best to be pursued is the same as now urged by the Democracy. The Democratic party have ever recognized the binding effect of the principles thus avowed in 1840, and the anti-Democratic party, by whatever name they may be known, have ever practically opposed them, if not in authoritative public avowal. 84.-TARIFF DUTIES ON FOREIGN IMPORTATIONS. The Constitution expressly authorizes Congress to lay and collect duties, "to pay the debts, and to provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, but all duties shall be uniform throughout the United States." The power and object are indisputable. There is no room for cavil or argument. There is nothing left to form the basis of a question in the ordinary and honest mind. Money for the Treasury, for particular uses, is the express and only object, the collection of which may collaterally affect other things. Incidentally, duties raise prices to the extent they are imposed, and so far our own productions are increased in price, giving them thus an incidental advantage, which necessary follows. For more than half a century, there has been a struggle on the part of domestic producers to give the incident the place of the principal object. Such a course, in fact, is equivalent to making and collecting a general tax to favor particular interests. In 1783 the Congress of the Confederation established a tariff of duties, and in 1789 Mr. Madison, under the new Government, proposed the same, which consisted of the following items on which he proposed specific duties, the amount being left blank:-On rum, ; on spirituous liquors, ; on mo ; on pep ; on all ; on all other arti lasses, -; on madeira wine, ; on all other wines, on common bohea teas, ; on all other teas, per, ; on brown sugars, ; on loaf sugars, other sugars, ; on cocoa and coffee, cles, per-cent. on their value at the time and place of importation. Such was the beginning of our tariffs, which are now swollen to pages upon pages, and are nearly as unstable as the winds. They do not remain at one point long enough for the business of the country to accommodate itself to them, as it would in time. These perpetual changes are profitable to the few and ruinous to the many. There have been over fifty laws enacted in |