erty; but our present national banks have a capital of $350,000,000— ten times as much as the old institution had. Messrs. Clay, Webster and Calhoun dreaded a government bank, and said that it was most fortunate for the country that there was antagonism between the then government and the United States Bank. Now we have the immense capital of the national banks, ten-fold more powerful than then existed, closely allied with a government expenditure and official patronage nearly twenty times greater than it then was. It has, too, at its back the power of $2,000,000,000 in the hands of bondholders and other creditors, who are making a common fight for it. This powerful combination has up to the present time, carried all its points and wielded the power of the government at its will. In the first conversation I ever had with Mr. Calhoun, he spoke with great apprehension of the fate of our free system in the event of the government being able to acquire the control of the money power of the country. Have not his fears been realized? Has not the government hitherto in its action been completely subservient to the money power? We have now before us not merely the question of pecuniary interest-that is overshadowed by the higher issue of liberty. The result of next year's contest will doubtless determine whether our present system of free government is to continue in substance as well as in name.

Entertaining such convictions, I, of course, feel the deepest interest in the coming elections in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The platforms of the democratic party, if not all that they should be, are in the right line of action. Of the probabilities of their success we must judge from the past. Since the so-called panic has become serious, the elections have generally been favorable to those opposed to the party in power. This was mainly due to the financial condition of the country. When matters are going on smoothly, the people are disposed to let the government remain in the hands of those in power; but when they sustain injury they endeavor to ascertain the cause--just as a man does not think it necessary to consult a physician as long as he feels well, but when attacked by pain he looks for a remedy. The attention of the masses having been called to the action of the government, they condemned it. To this cause mainly are we to attribute the great political changes that have occurred in the State elections. It was this that elected Gaston in Massachusetts. It is true there was said to be money enough in Massachusetts, but it was held by the few; nineteen out of twenty were in want, and, finding no employment to enable them to earn a living, manifested their dissatisfaction. It gave little consolation to suffering men to be told that General Butler and a few others had a super-abundance of money. The fact that a man's crib and barn were full of grain and provender would not console his live stock unless some of the contents could be obtained for their use. It is not singular that the party in power should have lost ground from such causes. Their overthrow would have been much more signal if their opponents had had the sagacity, the disinterestedness and the manliness to place themselves fairly and squarely on the true issue. Two or three bold speeches in the Senate, setting forth the truth of the causes from which the country was suffering, would have greatly increased the majorities against the administration party. Deprived as they were of the counsel of most of

those who should have been their leaders, the people understood the issue sufficiently to win the battle. Now, able men in Ohio, as well as elsewhere, are presenting the question to the masses, and I think they must win. They have truth and justice with them, and the interests of nineteen-twentieths of the people are on the same side. Against them is arrayed almost the entire money power of the country, which can to a great extent control newspapers and furnish orators.

It has struck me that the hard money organs are overshooting the mark in their mode of warfare. Feeling their cause to be on its merits weak, not content with cunning sophistries, they are profuse in the use of denunciatory epithets. They are constantly crying out rag money, affirming that all opposed to their views are dishonest; that a man who wishes debtors to pay only as much as they originally owed is no better than a knave, &c. On the other side it has gratified me to see with what patience the people of the country have borne the evils under which they are suffering. A similar condition of affairs would, in most parts of Europe, have produced a revolution, or at least uprisings and disturbances on a much larger scale than those in Pennsylvania. Our citizens, with the spirit of enlightened Americans are merely striving to find proper remedies through the ballot-box.

The hard money organs denounce as repudiators all who are against their ruinous policy of contraction. If a repudiation party should rise, it will be due to the denunciatory course of these organs that, in their profusion of epithets, are likely to excite the anger of the suffering mas

ses.

The people of this country are willing to pay every dollar of the national debt, but they think it ought to be paid in the manner least burdensome to them. It was a great mistake that the government did not content itself with paying merely the interest of the debt up to this time, leaving the principal to be discharged after the country had recovered from the losses of the war, and its wealth and population had been increased, so that the burden would have been rendered comparatively light. Paying the interest in gold would have brought the bonds up to par, and this ought to have satisfied men, who had originally bought them for half their face value. The bondholders and their allies, by insisting on more than this, and urging a policy as unjust as it is ruinous, may so irritate the masses as to lay a ground for a repudiation party. Men may rise up over the land who, by showing that the bondholders have already received more than the principal and interest of what they actually paid in gold, may so influence the minds of the people as to induce many to favor stopping further payments. Should any such strong party arise, it will be solely due to the greediness and insolence of the money power. Deprecating, as I do, any such contest, I trust that capitalists will be content, like Shylock, with the pound of flesh, and not also insist on having the life-blood of the country. It is idle for them to continue to push aside the real issue by cunning sophistries. They point to the fact that in England and in this country, when suspension of specie payments existed, business was not prosperous toward the close of those periods. In times of great trial, governments are compelled to resort to systems of credit.

Had not the United States in the late civil war drawn largely on its credit with the people, the war could not have been maintained on its

gigantic scale for a single year. Any striving now to pay off these debts too rapidly inflicts on the masses just such evils as were experienced in England from a like course. In their arguments they mistake cause for effect. Their error is like that of a man who should say that carrying crutches made men lame, because all the men he saw with crutches were lame. If our government had not resorted to a system of credit and expansion of currency it could not have moved at all. The suffering now experienced results from its attempting to throw away its crutches too soon. By allowing a longer time for recovery, the injury might be greatly lessened.

Correspondent-What is your idea, General, of the national bank

system?

General Clingman-The present national bank monopoly ought to be discontinued, and a system of State banks allowed to take its place. For ten or fifteen years prior to 1860, we had as good a system of currency as we could reasonably expect to see. I doubt if the community lost as much under that plan, as it does under the present one. Indeed, in addition to liabilities of individual losses, the present national bank organization, besides its inordinate gains, is enabled to make so extensive combinations among its members as to place the business operations of the country under its control, and the debtor class at its mercy. Besides removing it, the government should, it seems to me, not only coin specie, but also furnish the paper needed for circulation. By making that paper receivable for all public dues, it could doubtless keep afloat a larger volume than we now have. To prevent depreciation, that paper should be exchangeable for government bonds at a rate of interest not above four per cent. In the first instance such paper should be exchanged for the present national bank notes, paid out for all its expenditures, except what it is bound to pay in specie, and in exchange for interest bearing bonds at a fair rate, until there was outstanding such a volume, as the wants of commerce and business required, to be lessened when necessary, by investment in bonds bearing a low rate of interest.

[The speech which follows is published because it discusses the currency question in the first part of it, and secondly for this reason: "Stump speaking," as it is often called, or addresses directly to the voters, is one of our most potent America institutions. During a great part of my life, I have been accustomed to practice it. From the day when, in the year 1835, I made my first speech as a candidate for the House of Commons in North Carolina, down to the present time, I have not written a single sentence to be used for such a purpose. It was my custom always to speak directly to the people as I would talk to an acquaintance. By so doing, one not only secures the attention of the audience, but he makes a far better impression than he can by any other mode.

Hence I would advise all beginners to adopt this practice from the start. Most persons can easily do this, and one who cannot, though he may make a successful lecturer, and even deliver eloquent orations, will never be able to

struggle in a hand to hand contest with an adversary, before a popular audience.

Again, I have seen, as most persons, doubtless, have also done, that after speaking two or three times, before different audiences, I could present my views with more point and force than on the first occasion. Especiaily is this the case where one is interrupted by a question, and rallies his faculties under the stimulus of opposition. In my own canvasses the best points were thus furnished by irritated combativeness.

After the delivery of the speech several gentlemen expressed a desire that it should be published for campaign purposes. To meet the issue of the forthcoming weekly paper, it was rather hurriedly prepared. With the exception of some little hits thrown in to enliven the audience, which were purposely omitted, the gentlemen who heard it said that the report in all respects corresponded with the speech as delivered. It may, therefore, be regarded as a specimen of a "Buncombe speech," made by a Buncombe man.]

SPEECH

DELIVERED AT HENDERSONVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA, SEPTEMBER 12, 1876.

GENTLEMEN: Within the last twelve months I have been a representative in three Conventions, viz: that at Raleigh last autumn, called to amend our State Constitution; secondly, the Democratic Convention at Raleigh, which assembled in June, and nominated our excellent State ticket; and thirdly, the National Democratic Convention at St. Louis, which presented to the country Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A. Hendricks as candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. I shall to-day offer to your consideration topics connected mainly with the action of the last of these Conventions. According to my usual custom, rejecting all mere ornament and rhetorical display, I shall address you directly, as a man in earnest speaks to a friend on a matter of great importance.

Wherever I go, gentlemen, I hear the complaint of hard times. Often it is said that the times are like they were in 1840. But in fact, in the year 1840 the depression and financial distress were not at all equal to what they are now. I was then an active canvasser in the presidential campaign, and remember well the state of affairs then prevailing. There was no such scarcity of money as we now see. Though the banks had suspended specie payments, yet North and South Carolina bank notes were only two or three per cent. under par in New York, while such Georgia notes as I collected in our western counties were fourteen per cent. discount at the North, ranging about with the average value of the present greenback notes of the United States government. Business then went on nearly as usual, and people did not suffer for want of the necessaries of life in any part of the land. The condition of the country then bore the same relation to what we now witness as a panic or scare does to a serious wound.

Though the present pressure was at first most seriously felt in the West and South, it soon reached the Northern and Eastern States. It

is now probably felt more seriously in New England and New York than it is here. The South had already been prostrated and, like a man on his back, did not seem to have far to fall. Though we have little or no money, yet provisions exist here in sufficient abundance to supply the absolute wants of all classes, and but for old debts and present heavy taxes, we would not, as a community, be distressed. In the North, however, millions of people depend on daily employment for support, and having been in large numbers without occupation for a long period, extensive and frightful sufferings exist among them. In some of the States, hundreds and thousands collect together, and under the designation of "tramps" rob railway trains. You know that formerly European emigrants came to this country at the rate of nearly half a million annually, because wages were higher here than they were in the old countries. But so many men are out of employment now, and in a starving condition, than when some weeks ago in the city of New York, there was published an advertisement for a few stone cutters to go to Scotland to work, so many appeared that the streets around the building were blocked up, and the police were called in to keep order. The daily papers in that city state that thirty thousand men there, would gladly go across the Atlantic to earn a subsistence. For recruits in the army good mechanics, who were formerly accustomed to receive three or four dollars per day, offer themselves at the rate of thirteen dollars per month, or thereabouts.

But the present distress does not confine itself to the laboring classes and the poor, but is now pressing upon those who thought themselves rich. Many whose incomes have fallen short, in order that they may live as they formerly did, have mortgaged their dwelling houses to procure the means of keeping up their former style. Peter Cooper, one of the wealthiest, most intelligent and honored residents of New York, stated recently that half the houses in that city were under mortgages, and that when sold generally did not bring enough to pay the debts on them. When in that city frequently, as I have been during the present year, references were made to many costly houses, that were being sold for much less than half they would have brought three years ago. I might detain you for hours with details showing the distress and starvation prevailing. A similar condition exists in much of New England, and other portions of the Northern States. Some intelligent men make the estimate that there are a million of laborers out of employment, many of whom have exhausted their past earnings, and find subsistence with great difficulty. It is almost certain that notwithstanding the general industry of our citizens, which ought within the last three years, to have added greatly to the wealth of our country, the United States as a whole are poorer materially, than they were at that time, independently of the nominal shrinkage of values resulting from a diminished currency. This is due to the fact that capital has been unproductive, while laborers have been unemployed, and all classes to a great extent, have been eating up their former earnings.

The momentous question presents itself, to what are we to attribute the fact that, in a time of profound peace, and in spite of the gen