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 A session of Congress was soon called, to meet on the 31st of May, whose seventh Act repealed the Independent Treasury and the State Bank Deposit Law, leaving the administration to take care of the public money in its own way.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

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.