not fail to produce the most beneficial results.  Under a system of discriminating duties imposed for purposes of revenue, in unison with the provisions of existing laws, it is to be hoped that our policy will in the future be fixed and permanent, so as to avoid those constant fluctuations which defeat the very objects they have in view.  We shall thus best maintain a position which, while it will enable us the more readily to meet the advances of other countries calculated to promote our trade and commerce, will at the same time leave in our own hands the means of retaliating with greater effect unjust regulations.

In intimate connection with the question of revenue is that which makes provision for a suitable fiscal agent, capable of adding increased facilities in the collection and disbursement of the public revenues, rendering more secure their custody, and consulting a true economy in the great, multiplied, and delicate operations of the Treasury Department.  Upon such an agent depends in an eminent degree the establishment of a currency of uniform value, which is of so great importance to all the essential interests of society, and on the wisdom to be manifested in its creation much depends.  So intimately interwoven are its operations, not only with the interests of individuals, but of States, that it may be regarded to a great degree as controlling both.  If paper be used as the chief medium of circulation, and the power be vested in the Government of issuing it at pleasure, either in the form of Treasury drafts or any other, or if banks be used as the public depositories, with liberty to regard all surpluses from day to day as so much added to their active capital, prices are exposed to constant fluctuations and industry to severe suffering.  In the one case political considerations directed to party purposes may control, while excessive cupidity may prevail in the other.  The public is thus constantly liable to imposition.  Expansions and contractions may follow each other in rapid succession—­the one engendering a reckless spirit of adventure and speculation, which embraces States as well as individuals, the other causing a fall in prices and accomplishing an entire change in the aspect of affairs.  Stocks of all sorts rapidly decline, individuals are ruined, and States embarrassed even in their efforts to meet with punctuality the interest on their debts.  Such, unhappily, is the condition of things now existing in the United States.  These effects may readily be traced to the causes above referred to.  The public revenues, being removed from the then Bank of the United States, under an order of a late President, were placed in selected State banks, which, actuated by the double motive of conciliating the Government and augmenting their profits to the greatest possible extent, enlarged extravagantly their discounts, thus enabling all other existing banks to do the same; large dividends were declared, which, stimulating the cupidity