prove of the course of a party, however much it may merit it, consist of obedience to their will. Whatever others may think, my judgment and feelings conspire and embolden me to say, that a majority may err. It was corrupt majorities, if my memory serves me correctly, that, by their intrigues with Philip of Macedon, paved the way for his subjugation of the Grecian Republics. The triumvirate of Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus, wielded a majority of the Roman Senate. Cromwell had his majority in the English Parliament -yes, sir, he had his entire Parliament. Robespierre had his majority in the French National Convention. Even Nero observed the forms of the Roman Republic, and had his majority in the Senate of Rome.

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All estimates of the character of those which the gentleman has furnished, must, in their nature, be uncertain, because their great basis rests principally on conjecture. Were I asked to set a price on the soil of my country, which would compensate its present possessors for the abandonment of it, and oblige them to seek existence in other climes, I would indignantly say, Not the accumulated wealth of the world could for a moment tempt us to part with the land of our fathers-our inestimable inheritance. In this point of view, the estimate of the capital of the country at $2,567,480,000 is far below its intrinsic value. If, on the contrary, the idea is intended to be conveyed that this sum constitutes a disposable capital, or a fund from which is derived a profit in Mr. PEARSON addressed the Chair as follows: any considerable degree equal to the ordinary inMr. Chairman: The extent and variety of this terest of money, such a supposition is too illusory discussion may, perhaps, tend to impair the real to require refutation. Without examining the importance and intrinsic solemnity of the subject several items which are assumed as constituting immediately presented to our consideration. It this general aggregate of our wealth, I will conis, however, so intimately connected with the tent myself with examining one only; and should characteristic policy and avowed objects of the it appear to have been overrated nearly one hundAdministration, as to render their separation al- red fold, the elaborate superstructure of the honmost impracticable, and may well justify, if not orable chairman must necessarily be shaken, and positively demand, some inquiry into that policy the whole fabric left for its support on little more and those objects. By the bill on your table, to- than vague conjecture and visionary speculation. gether with the issue of paper called Treasury The item I allude to is $800,000,000, the estimatnotes, for five millions of dollars, it is proposed to ed value of our wild unappropriated lands. What obtain thirty millions of dollars on the credit of those lands may be worth some centuries to come the Government, to be applied exclusively to the I pretend not to say; but it is a well known fact, military and naval service of the current year; that the average proceeds from the sale of them the whole receipts from taxes, and other sources for the last six or eight years has not exceeded of revenue, not amounting to more than the pay- $600,000; and as this seems to be the era for conment of interest on former loans, the stipulated quest, and further extension of our territorial limreimbursement of part of the old debt, and ex-its, I doubt whether we can, for many years to penses of the civil list. The first question which presents itself is this: Can the Administration borrow, on terms which they ought to accept, the immense sum now proposed? I profess not, sir, any peculiar skill in finance, and but a limited knowledge of the fiscal concerns of this country. I will, therefore, not hazard a positive opinion as to the practicability of obtaining the proposed loan, though I have no hesitation in believing that it will not be obtained with the facility imagined by some gentlemen, and that the practical resources of the country, in its present situation, have been greatly overrated.

The honorable Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, (Mr. EPPES,) in a manner perhaps required to insure success to his measures, exbibited a very flattering prospect of the aggregate value of our country-the annual profits of industry-and the probable amount of necessary and unnecessary circulating medium. I object not to the effort of that gentleman, to convince us of the ability of the country, and the interest of the money holders to lend, when his object is to borrow. In private life, when a proposition is made, or a favor asked, the appeal is made to our ability or our interest. If our charity is applied to, the excellence of that cardinal virtue is not only portrayed by the successful mendicant, but his claim becomes irresistible the moment he persuades us that virtue is eminently our own.

come, calculate on increased sales of unappropriated lands. Taking, then, $600,000 as the annual value of this fund, it is evident a disposable capital of ten millions would yield an equal income. The conclusion is irresistible, that this estimated capital of $800,000,000, employed in the manner in which it is, and probably as it ought to be, is only equal to ten millions of specie, or other active capital. Thus, for all practical financial purposes, the estimated value of those lands is eighty fold beyond their real disposable value. Sir, we might as well boast of the value of the air we breathe, or of our political institutions, as to talk of a fund which cannot be brought into action, or in any way converted to meet the pecuniary exigencies of the Government. comparison. I think, for the purposes of the argument, a fair one. This little book (the Constitution) is worth to my country more than would be the wealth of Europe-at the same time it can be purchased in any book shop for the cost of printing and paper. The sum which could be raised from the exclusive sale of it, would bear no imaginable proportion to its intrinsic valueso also must be the result of all calculations, for financial purposes, on those wild lands, and a vast proportion of undisposable capital in this and every other country.

The

The gentleman (Mr. EPPES) has also favored us with an estimate of the annual income arising

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from his assumed capital. To this the same gen-exports of manufactures, I believe, cannot be caleral objections will apply; the premiums being culated at more than half a million of dollars. assumed, the conclusions are necessarily incon- The exports from those sources did not, the last clusive. The result of this estimate gives to us year, exceed about three hundred thousand dolan annual income of $255,849,600. The first re- lars. From this course of reasoning I am warmark which occurs to me is the very extraordi- ranted in concluding that, for Government use, nary circumstance of the gentleman having omit- or financial purposes, this immense sum of $172,ted to discriminate between the net and gross 000,000 dwindles down to about half a million of income, arising from any given object; we are, dollars, and that more cannot be made out of it, therefore, totally at a loss to know whether to unless we are doomed to go naked. consider this result as comprehending the net or gross income arising from the capital of the country. I presume, however, it is a mixture of both, and therefore affords a latitude for conjecture, too broad to arrive at the truth. It cannot be net income, because the amount exceeds twelve per cent. on the given capital; a result which the most sanguine cannot admit. It cannot be gross income, because it is well known the annual produce from agriculture exceeds $19,640,600-as is sufficiently proved by the official reports of annual domestic exports-which in better times amounted to nearly fifty millions of dollars, and would now exceed that amount were it not for the war and that deadly incubus, the Embargo, which presses to death the resources and activity of the country. The sum allowed for commercial income may remain as a rule for other times; at present we have no commerce, and consequently no income from that source.

Without examining all the items of this account of the honorable chairman, I cannot avoid noticing the last, though not least, article on the list. It is the product of other occupations, including manufactures, as stated in the last Census, amounting to $172,000,000. This, I presume, must be intended as the gross product, and indeed it is so gross as not to be susceptible of application by the Government, to any purposes of finance. I admit, with great satisfaction, the intrinsic value of our domestic manufactures; our people, of almost every description, particularly of the laborious class, are clothed with the fabrics made, for the most part, in their own families. This is as it ought to be, and is far preferable to those hotbed manufacturing establishments which spring up in times of national depression, and can only flourish on the ruins of agriculture and commerce, particularly in the Southern and Middle States, where our dispersed population, our fertile fields, and extensive seacoast, all point to the plough and the ship as the instruments of their wealth and prosperity-as the means most conducive to national good and individual virtue. I would seriously ask gentlemen, what revenue they could expect to derive from a tax on the domestic manufactures of the Southern, Middle, or even Western States? Were this attempted, it might not literally take the bread out of the mouth of the laborer, but it would strip him of the garments he wore; it would bear most heavy on the poorer class of citizens, and in proportion to the number of women and children in a family, in that proportion would such a tax operate on them. In the States which I have mentioned we have no surplus manufactures; and from all the States the

The honorable chairman, having fixed the capital and productive income of the country, proceeds to ascertain, by a process I profess not to understand, the amount both of necessary and unnecessary circulating medium. The necessary circulating medium he estimates at about $47,000,000, and the surplus at $53,000,000, making in the whole one hundred millions of dollars, of which he conceives fifty-three millions may be loaned to the Government. Permit me here to remark, that this calculation appears to me to be at war with all those correct principles which govern the transactions of moneyed capitalists. It would be perfect folly for them to put into circulation more medium than is necessary for the demands of commerce, and the ordinary gradual improvement of the country; if they attempted it the surplus would return upon them, or the rate of interest would be reduced in proportion to the excess of paper set afloat. The present high rate of interest contradicts the idea of the existence of such a superabundance of circulating medium. The actual specie in the United States does not exceed twenty-five millions of dollars; this is generally held by the banks, and their paper literally constitutes the circulating medium, and not a dollar can be obtained from the banks at less interest than about seven and a quarter per cent., consequently, whatever may be the nominal amount of bank capital, they cannot keep in circulation more than the amount necessary for the objects which I have stated, which the gentleman admits to be forty-seven millions of dollars. I am inclined, therefore, to think the actual circulating medium, in times of ordinary prosperity, does not exceed fifty millions of dollars. This paper medium, resting on a specie capital of not more than twenty millions, will not, with safety, admit issues to a greater amount.

Already has the Government borrowed within the last two years near forty millions of dollars, most of which has been obtained from the banks, and from individuals who make the banks the instruments of enabling them to comply with their engagements. The fair and honest ability of the banks to lend does not exist to a much greater extent, unless the stock of the Government is considered a safe fund on which they may issue their own paper to any amount.

If this be the case, it is evident the whole system is a tottering fabric of credit; the Government relying on the credit of the banks, and the banks resting on the credit of the Government. If this confidence does exist, and is likely to continue, I would ask, why not issue Government paper at once, and save the enormous interest now

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paid to the banks, and run the chances of depre-spective spheres of bank notes will be circumciation, instead of depreciating it ourselves by scribed, in proportion to the greater number of giving a premium for other paper, which may banks by which they have been issued; because depreciate equally soon? I mean not to advocate it is the policy and interest of banks, in order to a project of this sort, my object is only to show save their coin, not to receive in payment or give that the present system is bottomed on credit circulation to notes of distant banks. If such notes alone, and therefore may fail. are received, it is for the purpose of redeeming The present unfortunate situation of the coun- their own, or demanding the specie, and therefore try adds much, in my judgment, to the force of cannot be considered an eligible, or indeed a cirthose remarks. If we had a flourishing com- culating medium at all, except to a limited exmerce-if there existed a free, reciprocal inter- tent, often confined to a particular county or State. course between the several States-if there were In ordinary times this inconvenience may not be a perfect community of interests, and a riveted severely felt; an active commerce and free exconfidence between the various sections of the change of commodities between the different country, and especially between the moneyed States would lessen the evil. But, sir, in times men and the moneyed institutions in all the of commotion and of unusual expenditure, when States, the prospect would be greatly changed. the Government cannot adapt its local expendi In those events, credit might be relied on to al-tures to its local receipts, when the ordinary roumost any imaginable extent. But, sir, this un-tine of business is broken up, bank paper will not fortunately is not our lot. Blocked up as we are be receivable beyond the neighborhood of its own by the enemy's squadron on our coast; corked up institution, or will be immediately thrown back by our still more unmerciful Embargo and Non- upon it. Those institutions must necessarily beimportation laws, calculated, as it were, to fill up come more limited and more guarded in their the little chasm of ills which the enemy alone operations, or a failure must be the consequence. could not inflict; the entire coasting trade de- The reliance of the Government on this kind of stroyed, and even the pittance of intercourse from circulating medium must be precarious. Suppose one port to another in the same State prohibited; some of the principal banks were to contract for the planters of the Southern and Middle States, the greater part of the proposed loan, and issue finding no markets for their products at home, are their own paper on the credit of the stock to be driven to the alternative of wagoning it hundreds created; these bills not finding general circulation, of miles in search of a precarious market in the or a shock given to the institutions, either by acNorthern and Eastern States, or permitting it to cident or mismanagement, what would be the sitrot on their hands. Many of those articles which uation of Government? Their finances would are, or have become by habit, necessary for their be deranged, their credit impaired-enriched with comfort, are procured at the most extravagant a debt, but their coffers empty. prices from other sections of the Union. The Without venturing an express opinion whether balance of trade, if trade it may be called, from the proposed loan can be obtained from the citithese and other causes being so entirely against zens of our country, I will be allowed to express the Southern and Middle States, the whole of a truism-that the power of Government fairly our specie is fast travelling to the North and East; to borrow, must depend on the ability of the people our bank paper is thrown back upon the institu- fairly to lend. This ability may be judged of, by tions from which it was issued, and as the war each gentleman estimating the proportion which expenditures are proportionably inconsiderable his constituents would have to contribute in the in the Southern and Middle States, where the Constitutional mode of taxation and representaloans have been principally obtained, the bills of tion. By this mode of calculation, one of the those banks are daily returning, and their vaults counties which I have the honor to represent, drained of their specie, to be locked up in the (Rowan,) would have to contribute about ninety Western and Eastern States, never to return but thousand dollars-her proportion of the present with the return of peace and commerce. The ex-three million direct tax being about nine thousand traordinary and alarming demands which have lately been made from Boston on the banks of New York, and which I understand are progressing to the South, prove these remarks not to be the mere effect of fancy.

dollars, consequently her proportion of thirty millions would be ten times that amount. Although this is a fertile and populous county, its inhabitants are unable to contribute such a sum in this or any other year, without a sacrifice of their farms and the ordinary comforts of subsistence. The same remark will apply with equal force to the other counties constituting the district I represent, and perhaps with equal force to every district in the State.

But, sir, admitting for the argument, that the bank capital is as great as has been supposed, and their notes, which constitute the circulating medium, are in amount equal to the demands of Government; does it follow that this medium is so regulated as to be safely obtained from the Leaving this view of the subject, which may banks, and effectually applied to the wants of the be considered in a great measure speculative, I Government? If gentlemen suppose the real cir- find other objections to the bill crowding on me culating medium is increased in proportion to the with a force not to be resisted. It is sufficient for number of banks established in every section of me to know that thirty millions of additional debt the country, they are greatly deceived. Bank are about to be saddled on my country for the ..paper being the representative of specie, the re-military operations of this single year. It is

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enough for me to know that the expenditures of the Government, from January, 1812, to January, 1815, will have exceeded ninety millions of dollars, exclusive of many millions of outstanding claims, and that the public debt will, at the close of the present year, exceed one hundred and five millions of dollars. This brings me again to reflect what is the proportion which my constituents will have to pay, agreeable to the Constitutional mode of taxation, and unless you restore peace and com-factorily answered. It is time the people should merce no other mode can be adopted. For the sake of brevity I will take one county, (Rowan,) as before; her proportion of three millions being nine thousand, (I speak in round numbers,) the amount of debt at the close of the present year being one hundred and five millions, the proportion of this one county will be three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, the annual interest of which, at seven per cent., will be twenty-two thousand and five dollars. This, sir, is more than the surplus product of their industry, and more than they are able to pay.

For what, then, it may be naturally inquired, is this mass of debt created-those mighty sacrifices to be made? Is it to prosecute a war of conquest against the British possessions in Canada? I believe this is the object. If so, without stopping to calculate the chances of success, which are gloomy indeed, if we may judge from what has passed, I hesitate not to say, it is an unprofitable contest, unworthy our efforts, and will illy requite our toils. For my single self I would not give a draft on the fallen Bonaparte for my share of the spoliations which he has committed on our commerce, for all the advantages which, in my judgment, will result from the acquisition of Canada.

but in no other way could the possession be either valuable or secure. Admitting Canada to be taken, (and that we have the physical force to take it I do not deny,) I demand of the advocates of this war to know what is then to be done. Do they mean to plant their standard on the walls of Quebec, apportion out the lands to the conquerors, and sing a requiem to "free trade and sailors' rights?" These questions never have been satisknow and understand them. My humble opinion is, if any legitimate object exists for the prosecution of this war, that object is not to be obtained by the conquest of Canada; I therefore advise the abandonment of this phantom, at least during the pendency of the present negotiation. Husband the resources of the country-do what you caa for commerce and the navy, and, above all things, prepare for defence, by affording competent protection to your bleeding frontiers and exposed seacoast. Do those things which manifest a sincere love of peace-a guardian care for your suffering and exposed citizens-in a word, give a native, home-bred character to your war, and should peace not be the result you will not be forsaken, at least by me, in the hour of peril.

Gentlemen in the majority, still thirsting for conquest, attempt to treat with ridicule the suggestions from this side of the House, to suspend offensive operations. If there is anything ridiculous in the idea of a nation declaring war, merely to invite attack, that they may have the privi lege of repelling it, let it be remembered that we the minority are innocent; the majority alone are answerable for this state of things, if it does or should exist. This, however, is not a fair statement of the question; it is not whether we are to become conquerors by acting on the defensive, but it is whether the resources of the country shall be exhausted in projects of ambition and of conquest-whether the whole military force shall be employed against Canada, and your homes and firesides left to take care of themselves. Sir, our paramount duty is to secure our homes before we seek adventures abroad.

Gentlemen, however, tell us, their ulterior object is "free trade and sailors' rights." Are those objects to be attained by the conquest of Canada? Do you expect to barter the fancied conquered territories for "free trade and sailors' rights?" Whatever opinions might have originally been entertained on this question, they exist no longer. Canada once taken, you cannot get clear of it without giving up the Western States at the same Mr. Chairman, I was not a little surprised to time. No, sir, it will be fixed on you, although hear an honorable gentleman from South Caro"free trade and sailors' rights" should never be lina (Mr. CALHOUN) say, the other day, that heard of more. The little fleeting success which competent protection had been afforded to the followed the achievement on Lake Erie last Fall, exposed parts of the country. Sir, the Governbrought forth the real, though till then latent sen- ment has not afforded competent protection; the timents of the Western States. Their language melancholy scenes which have lately been wit was unequivocal-Canada must not, shall not be nessed on the Northern frontier, prove, that whilst given up. The present Administration would your armies were recovering from their late disnot, and perhaps could not, resist this Western asters, and securing themselves on the borders of torrent. Canada once taken, even were we dis- Canada, threatening another assault in the Spring, posed to surrender it, I doubt whether it would the frontier of New York, to the extent of fifty be a valuable article of traffic in our hands; I miles, was laid waste by a handful of the enemy's doubt whether Great Britain would desire the troops, and the innocent inhabitants delivered repossession of so precarious a tenure. Those over to captivity or slaughter. Let the gentleprovinces would forever after be at our command; man inquire of Virginia and North Carolina what the inhabitants would be our tenants at will, and protection they have had from the General Govsubject to our good pleasure. To retain posses-ernment; let him, on his return home, visit the sion might be attended with vast expense and danger to our country. Great Britain might desire to recover by force what was lost by force,

tomb-stones of many brave and respectable citizens of those States, who either fell by the hands of the enemy, or became the untimely victims of