Arguments and conclusions in substance like these, Gentlemen, will not be wanting, if men of great popularity, commanding characters, sustained by powerful parties, and full of good intentions towards the public, may be permitted to call themselves the universal representatives of the people.

But, Gentlemen, it is the currency, the currency of the country,—­it is this great subject, so interesting, so vital, to all classes of the community, which has been destined to feel the most violent assaults of executive power.  The consequences are around us and upon us.  Not unforeseen, not unforetold, here they come, bringing distress for the present, and fear and alarm for the future.  If it be denied that the present condition of things has arisen from the President’s interference with the revenue, the first answer is, that, when he did interfere, just such consequences were predicted.  It was then said, and repeated, and pressed upon the public attention, that that interference must necessarily produce derangement, embarrassment, loss of confidence, and commercial distress.  I pray you, Gentlemen, to recur to the debates of 1832, 1833, and 1834, and then to decide whose opinions have proved to be correct.  When the treasury experiment was first announced, who supported, and who opposed it?  Who warned the country against it?  Who were they who endeavored to stay the violence of party, to arrest the hand of executive authority, and to convince the people that this experiment was delusive; that its object was merely to increase executive power, and that its effect, sooner or later, must be injurious and ruinous?  Gentlemen, it is fair to bring the opinions of political men to the test of experience.  It is just to judge of them by their measures, and their opposition to measures; and for myself, and those political friends with whom I have acted, on this subject of the currency, I am ready to abide the test.

But before the subject of the currency, and its present most embarrassing state, is discussed, I invite your attention, Gentlemen, to the history of executive proceedings connected with it.  I propose to state to you a series of facts; not to argue upon them, not to mystify them, nor to draw any unjust inference from them; but merely to state the case, in the plainest manner, as I understand it.  And I wish, Gentlemen, that, in order to be able to do this in the best and most convincing manner, I had the ability of my learned friend, (Mr. Ogden,) whom you have all so often heard, and who usually states his case in such a manner that, when stated, it is already very well argued.