which has brought the legislatures of so many of the free States of this Union to quit the sphere of their ordinary duties, for the purpose of coöperating to accomplish a measure, in our judgment, so unconstitutional, so derogatory to the character of the Senate, and marked with so broad an impression of compliance with power.

But this resolution is to pass. We expect it. That cause which has been powerful enough to influence so many State legislatures will show itself powerful enough, especially with such aids, to secure the passage of the resolution here.

We make up our minds to behold the spectacle which is to ensue. We collect ourselves to look on in silence, while a scene is exhibited, which, if we did not regard it as a ruthless violation of a sacred instrument, would appear to us to be little elevated above the character of a contemptible farce. This scene we shall behold, and hundreds of American citizens, as many as may crowd into these lobbies and galleries, will behold it also; with what feelings I do not undertake to say.

We tell

But we PROTEST, we most solemnly PROTEST, against the substance and against the manner of this proceeding; against its object, against its form, aud against its effect. you that you have no right to mar or mutilate the record of our votes given here, and recorded according to the Constitution; we tell you that we may as well erase the yeas and nays on any other question or resolution, or on all questions and resolutions, as on this; we tell you that you have just as much right to falsify the record, by so altering it as to make us appear to have voted on any question as we did not vote, as you have to erase a record, and make that page a blank in which our votes, as they were actually given and recorded, now stand. The one proceeding, as it appears to us, is as much a falsification of the record as the other.

Having made this PROTEST, our duty is performed We rescue our own names, character, and honor from all participation in this matter; and whatever the wayward character of the times, the headlong and plunging spirit of party devotion, or the fear or the love of power, may have

been able to bring about elsewhere, we desire to thank God that they have not, as yet, overcome the love of liberty, fidelity to true republican principles, and a sacred regard for the Constitution, in that State whose soil was drenched to a mire by the first and best blood of the Revolution. Massachusetts, as yet, has not been conquered; and while we have the honor to hold seats here as her Senators, we shall never consent to the sacrifice either of her rights or our own; we shall never fail to oppose what we regard as a plain and open violation of the Constitution of the country; and we should have thought ourselves wholly unworthy of her, if we had not, with all the solemnity and earnestness in our power, PROTESTED against the adoption of the resolution now before the Senate.

A NATIONAL BANK.

Remarks made in the Senate of the United States, on the 8th of February, 1837, on presenting a Petition of a large Number of the Merchants of New York, for the Establishment of a National Bank.

I RISE, Mr. President, for the purpose of presenting to the Senate a petition signed by fourteen or fifteen hundred mercantile houses in the city of New York, praying for the establishment of a national bank in that city. These petitioners, Sir, set forth that, in their opinion, a national bank is the only remedy of a permanent character for the correction of the evils now affecting the currency of the country and the commercial exchanges. The petition is accompanied by a short communication from the committee raised for the purpose of preparing the petition, in which they state, what I believe to be true, from some knowledge of my own, that the petition is subscribed without reference to political distinctions; and they inform us, on the authority of their own observation and knowledge, that, in their opinion, on no subject did the mercantile community of New York ever address Congress with more entire unanimity than they now approach it, in favor of a national bank.

Mr. President, my own opinions on this subject have long

been known; and they remain now what they always have been. The constitutional power of Congress to create a bank is made more apparent by the acknowledged necessity which the government is under to use some sort of banks as fiscal agents. The argument stated the other day by the member from Ohio, opposite to me, and which I have suggested often heretofore, appears to me unanswerable; and that is, that, if the government has the power to use corporations in the fiscal concerns of the country, it must have the power to create such corporations. I have always thought that, when, by law, both houses of Congress declared the use of State banks necessary to the administration of the revenue, every argument against the constitutional power of Congress to create a Bank of the United States was thereby surrendered; that it is plain that, if Congress has the power to adopt banks for the particular use of the government, it has the power to create such institutions also, if it deem that mode the best. No government creates corporations for the mere purpose of giving existence to an artificial body. It is the end designed, the use to which it is to be applied, that decides the question, in general, whether the power exists to create such bodies. such a corporation as a bank be necessary to government; if its use be indispensable, and if, on that ground, Congress may take into its service banks created by States, over which it has no control, and which are but poorly fitted for its purposes, how can it be maintained that Congress may not create a bank, by its own authority, responsible to itself, and well suited to promote the ends designed by it?

If

Mr. President, when the subject was last before the Senate, I expressed my own resolution not to make any movement towards the establishment of a national bank, till public opinion should call for it. In that resolution I still remain. But it gives me pleasure to have the opportunity of presenting this petition, out of respect to the signers; and I have no unwillingness certainly to have a proper opportunity of renewing the expression of my opinions on the subject, although I know that, so general has become the impression hostile to such an institution, any movement here would be

vain till there is a change in public opinion. That there will be such a change I fully believe; it will be brought about, I think, by experience and sober reflection among the people; and when it shall come, then will be the proper time for a movement on the subject in the public councils. Not only in New York, but from here to Maine, I believe it is now the opinion of five sixths of the whole mercantile community, that a national bank is indispensable to the steady regulation of the currency, and the facility and cheapness of exchanges. The board of trade at New York presented a memorial in favor of the same object some time ago. The Committee on Finance reported against the prayer of the petitioners, as was to have been expected from the known sentiments of a majority of that committee. In presenting this petition now to the consideration of the Senate, I have done all that I purpose on this occasion, except to move that the petition be laid on the table and printed.

Sir, on the subjects of currency and of the exchanges of commerce, experience is likely to make us wiser than we now are. These highly-interesting subjects, interesting to the property, the business, and the means of support of all classes, ought not to be connected with mere party questions and temporary politics. In the business and transactions of life, men need security, steadiness, and a permanent system. This is the very last field for the exhibition of experiments, and I fervently hope that intelligent men, in and out of Congress, will coöperate in measures which may be reasonably expected to accomplish these desirable objects, desirable and important alike to all classes and descriptions of people.

THE MADISON PAPERS.

Remarks made in the Senate of the United States, on the 20th of February, 1837, in Rela tion to the Purchase of the Manuscript Papers of Mr. Madison.

MR. PRESIDENT, I suppose there is no member of the Senate who regards the sum proposed to be given for these manuscripts as too large, if the appropriation is within the just field of our constitutional powers. Now, what is the object of this appropriation ? The Senate sits under a Constitution which has now endured more than fifty years, which was formed under very peculiar circumstances, under a great exigency, and in a manner in which no constitution was ever formed in any other country, on principles of united and yet divided legislation, altogether unexampled in the history of free states. I agree fully in the sentiment that the constant rule of interpretation to be applied to this instrument is, that its restrictions are contained in itself, and that it is to be made, as far as possible, its own interpreter. I also agree that the practice under the government, for a long course of years, and the opinions of those who both formed the instrument, and afterward aided in carrying it into effect by laws passed under its authority, are to be the next source of interpretation; and it seems to me that the measure now proposed is of great importance, both in connection with the Constitution itself, and with the history of its interpretation. I shall not now speak of the political opinions of Mr. Madison. I look only to the general facts of the case. It is well known that the convention of great men who formed our Constitution sat with closed doors; that no report of their proceedings was published at that time; and that their debates were listened to by none but themselves and the officers in attendance. We have, indeed, the official journal kept by their order. It is an important document, but it informs us only of their official acts. We get from it nothing whatever of the debates of that illustrious body. Besides this, there are only a few published sketches, more or less valuable. But the connection of Mr. Madison with the Constitution and the government, and his profound knowledge of all that related to both, would neces