Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2). Benton Thomas Hart
said aught in disparagement of the operations of others in Florida, either verbally or in writing, officially or unofficially, knowing the country as I now know it, I consider myself bound as a man of honor solemnly to retract it."
Such are the amends which General Jesup makes – frank and voluntary – full and kindly – worthy of a soldier towards brother soldiers; and far more honorable to his predecessors in command than the disparaging comparisons which have been instituted here to do them honor at his expense.
The expenses of this war is another head of attack pressed into this debate, and directed more against the administration than against the commanding general. It is said to have cost twenty millions of dollars; but that is an error – an error of near one-half. An actual return of all expenses up to February last, amounts to nine and a half millions; the rest of the twenty millions go to the suppression of hostilities in other places, and with other Indians, principally in Georgia and Alabama, and with the Cherokees and Creeks. Sir, this charge of expense seems to be a standing head with the opposition at present. Every speech gives us a dish of it; and the expenditures under General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren are constantly put in contrast with those of previous administrations. Granted that these expenditures are larger – that they are greatly increased; yet what are they increased for? Are they increased for the personal expenses of the officers of the government, or for great national objects? The increase is for great objects; such as the extinction of Indian titles in the States east of the Mississippi – the removal of whole nations of Indians to the west of the Mississippi – their subsistence for a year after they arrive there – actual wars with some tribes – the fear of it with others, and the consequent continual calls for militia and volunteers to preserve peace – large expenditures for the permanent defences of the country, both by land and water, with a pension list for ever increasing; and other heads of expenditure which are for future national benefit; and not for present individual enjoyment. Stripped of all these heads of expenditure, and the expenses of the present administration have nothing to fear from a comparison with other periods. Stated in the gross, as is usually done, and many ignorant people are deceived and imposed upon, and believe that there has been a great waste of public money; pursued into the detail, and these expenditures will be found to have been made for great national objects – objects which no man would have undone, to get back the money, even if it was possible to get back the money by undoing the objects. No one, for example, would be willing to bring back the Creeks, the Cherokees, the Choctaws, and Chickasaws into Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina, even if the tens of millions which it has cost to remove them could be got back by that means; and so of the other expenditures: yet these eternal croakers about expense are blaming the government for these expenditures.
Sir, I have gone over the answers, which I proposed to make to the accusations of the senators from New Jersey and South Carolina. I have shown them to be totally mistaken in all their assumptions and imputations. I have shown that there was no fraud upon the Indians in the treaty at Fort Gibson – that the identical chiefs who made that treaty have since been the hostile chiefs – that the assassination and massacre of an agent, two government expresses, an artillery officer, five citizens, and one hundred and twelve men of Major Dade's command, caused the war – that our troops are not subject to censure for inefficiency – that General Jesup has been wrongfully denounced upon this floor – and that even the expense of the Florida war, resting as it does in figures and in documents, has been vastly overstated to produce effect upon the public mind. All these things I have shown; and I conclude with saying that cost, and time, and loss of men, are all out of the question; that, for outrages so wanton and so horrible as those which occasioned this war, the national honor requires the most ample amends; and the national safety requires a future guarantee in prosecuting this war to a successful close, and completely clearing the peninsula of Florida of all the Indians that are upon it.
CHAPTER XX.
RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS BY THE NEW YORK BANKS
The suspension commenced on the 10th of May in New York, and was followed throughout the country. In August the New York banks proposed to all others to meet in convention, and agree upon a time to commence a general resumption. That movement was frustrated by the opposition of the Philadelphia banks, for the reason, as given, that it was better to await the action of the extra session of Congress, then convoked, and to meet in September. The extra session adjourned early in October, and the New York banks, faithful to the promised resumption of specie payments, immediately issued another invitation for the general convention of the banks in that city on the 27th of November ensuing, to carry into effect the object of the meeting which had been invited in the month of August. The 27th of November arrived; a large proportion of the delinquent banks had accepted the invitation to send delegates to the convention: but its meeting was again frustrated – and from the same quarter – the Bank of the United States, and the institutions under its influence. They then resolved to send a committee to Philadelphia to ascertain from the banks when they would be ready, and to invite them to name a day when they would be able to resume; and if no day was definitely fixed, to inform them that the New York banks would commence specie payments without waiting for their co-operation. The Philadelphia banks would not co-operate. They would not agree to any definite time to take even initiatory steps towards resumption. This was a disappointment to the public mind – that large part of it which still had faith in the Bank of the United States; and the contradiction which it presented to all the previous professions of that institution, required explanations, and, if possible, reconciliation with past declarations. The occasion called for the pen of Mr. Biddle, always ready, always confident, always presenting an easy remedy, and a sure one, for all the diseases to which banks, currency, and finance were heir. It called for another letter to Mr. John Quincy Adams, that is to say, to the public, through the distinction of that gentleman's name. It came – the most elaborate and ingenious of its species; its burden, to prove the entire ability of the bank over which he presided to pay in full, and without reserve, but its intention not to do so on account of its duty to others not able to follow its example, and which might be entirely ruined by a premature effort to do so. And he concluded with condensing his opinion into a sentence of characteristic and sententious brevity: "On the whole, the course which in my judgment the banks ought to pursue, is simply this: The banks should remain exactly as they are – prepared to resume, but not yet resuming." But he did not stop there, but in another publication went the length of a direct threat of destruction against the New York banks if they should, in conformity to their promise, venture to resume, saying: "Let the banks of the Empire State come up from their Elba, and enjoy their hundred days of resumption! a Waterloo awaits them, and a Saint Helena is prepared for them."
The banks of New York were now thrown upon the necessity of acting without the concurrence of those of Pennsylvania, and in fact under apprehension of opposition and counteraction from that quarter. They were publicly pledged to act without her, and besides were under a legal obligation to do so. The legislature of the State, at the time of the suspension, only legalized it for one year. The indulgence would be out on the 15th of May, and forfeiture of charter was the penalty to be incurred throughout the State for continuing it beyond that time. The city banks had the control of the movement, and they invited a convention of delegates from all the banks in the Union to meet in New York on the 15th of April. One hundred and forty-three delegates, from the principal banks in a majority of the States, attended. Only delegates from fifteen States voted – Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carolina among the absent; which, as including the three principal commercial cities on the Atlantic board south of New York, was a heavy defalcation from the weight of the convention. Of the fifteen States, thirteen voted for resuming on the 1st day of January, 1839 – a delay of near nine months; two voted against that day – New York and Mississippi; and (as it often happens in concurring votes) for reasons directly opposite to each other. The New York banks so voted because the day was too distant – those of Mississippi because it was too near. The New York delegates wished the 15th of May, to avoid the penalty of the State law: those of Mississippi wished the 1st of January, 1840, to allow them to get in two more cotton crops before the great pay-day came. The result of the voting showed the still great power of the Bank of the United States. The delegates of the banks of ten States, including those with which she had most business, either refused to attend the convention, or to vote after having attended. The rest chiefly voted