If the object of the argument of the majority report upon this charge be, to urge that, in the new charter which may be granted to the bank, a clause should be introduced to prohibit the bank from selling the certificates of the stock of authorized loans by the bank to the government, it is obvious that such a clause would be precisely equivalent to a provision that the bank should never loan to the government at all, for it is clear that congress could lay no other competitor with the bank for the loan under the same restriction; nor could the bank, under such a restriction, ever enter into competition with other proposers for the loan not so restricted. Among the great public benefits of a national bank, with a capital proportioned to the extent of its operations, the subscriber considers that this very facility furnished to the government of the contracting loans upon moderate terms, as the exigencies of the public interest may require, holds a conspicuous rank. He believes those very loans to which the majority report refers, to be signal examples of the benefit of the bank to the nation. He is well assured, that if at any time when those loans were contracted, there had been no national bank, the loans must have been made upon terms much more burdensome to the borrowers, while the public treasury would have lost all the profit of the participation in the loan to the nation as stockholders of one fifth of the capital of the bank. their authority, for their appropriations for these turnpike roads. Nor is it just to consider them in the light of donations or gratuities, wasteful of the property of the stockholders. For such expenditures, the board of directors at Philadelphia could have no imaginable motive, other than that of promoting the interest of the stockholders, and making their funds more available. With regard to the building of houses, the majority report quotes the restriction in the charter upon the holding of real estate by the bank. The corporation is permitted to hold lands, tenaments, and hereditaments, bona fide mortgaged to it by way of security, or conveyed to it in satisfaction of debts previously contracted in the course of its dealings, or purchased at sales upon judgments obtained for such debts. It is not alleged that the bank holds one acre more of land than is thus allowed by law. But the majority report seems to consider the restriction as affecting not only the quantity of lands which they might hold, but the right of improving that which was their own-the common proprietary right. If there had been any manifestation of a desire on the part of the corporation to increase the quantity of their lands, tenaments, and hereditaments, permanently held, the subscriber would have been among the first to censure their design, and the readiest to restrain them from the indulgence of such a desire by law. But almost all these lands were held in one placeCincinnati, in the state of Ohio. They had, according to the declaration of the president of the bank, come into their possession strongly against their own inclinations. He stated, and it appears to be perfectly natural, that all the lands which came into their hands were considered by them as incumbrances; that their design was to dispose of them as speedily as they possibly could; that for this purpose they had erected a small number of houses, to make both the land on which they stood, and the adjoining lands, more easily and more freecontributions, in labor and materials, by debtors to the bank, who had no other means of payment. The ad. vantage of all this was principally to the stockholders of the bank; and the subscriber believes that the solicitude for their interest, so warmly manifested in the majority report, when denying the right of the president and directors to spend their money in donations and gratuities, will find no responsive voice among the stockholders themselves. It was indeed the unfortunate condition of those to whom the management of the affairs of the corporation were entrusted, that whatever they have But this assertion, in either of its forms, is liable to done must be made a subject of censure. If they inmuch controversy, and must be received with much crease their business and their profits by branch drafts qualification. It is admitted, in a note to the report, to upon the bank, it is a heinous offence, because congress be possible that the improvements were in the neigh-had neglected to give a power to sign the bank bills to borhood of the real estate of the bank, and upon the ground that such donations would increase the value of that real estate; and this possibility the majority would have found to be positive fact, if they had thought proper to ask for an explanation of it before passing censure upon the transaction. The fifth and sixth subjects of charges, considered by the majority report as amounting to violations of the charter, come within the purview of one and the same principle. They consist of expenditures made by authority of the president and directors of the bank for the purpose of improving and of adding value to the real estate, of which, in the course of their business, they have become lawfully possessed. There are two donations of 1500 dollars each to turnpike road companiessome appropriations for canal basins-for building of six ware-houses, and perhaps some other houses. Therely saleable. The buildings were also erected, partly by appears to be in the principle of these charges, something of an instinctive aversion to internal improvements-a sentiment with which the subscriber must disclaim all sympathy whatever. The majority report presents the donations to the two turnpike road companies as offences highly aggravated by the circumstance that the general government had declined making appropriations for similar objects-which declining for similar objects becomes, in the very next sentence of the report, a direct refusal of the government to expend its revenues on the very same objects. The assertion is therefore altogether gratuitous, that the government had declined to make appropriations for similar objects. The government has made many and very large appropriations for the construction of roads, because they would give additional value to the public lands through or near which the road was to pass. It was the main argument upon which the first very expensive work of internal improvement, the Cumberland road, was undertaken. It has silenced many a stubborn objection, satisfied many a timid scruple, subdued many a constitutional obstacle. So decisive has been its effect, that it would be difficult to name a single instance of the refusal of congress to make an appropriation to assist in the construction of a road when it has been made apparent to congress, that it would raise the value of public lands. If, therefore, the proceedings of the bank were to be influenced by the example of the government, they had the full sanction of any other officers than the president and cashier. If they increase the value of their real estate, by contributing to a turnpike road, it is wasting the property of the stockholders in gratuities and donations. If they enlarge their discounts and accommodations, they supply temptations to over-trading, and bring the bank to the verge of ruin. If they contract their issues, they produce unheard-of distress in the trading community. Do they trade in foreign silver and domestic gold coins? They are accessary to the pernicious exportation of the precious metals. Do they substitute bills of exchange for silver dollars in the exportation to China? Who does not see that they must send to London the coin which formerly went round the Cape of Good Hope? And, besides, the transaction looks very like respondentia securities. The most perfect parallel to the majority report, known to the subscriber, is the lively lady in "Much Ado about Nothing;" "who never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd, But she would spell him backward." Thus, when the administration of Mr. Cheves can be exhibited in favorable contrast with that of the present president, it is presented with high and earnest com mendation: but when a charge of usury can be brought to bear upon the bank, upon the credit of a confession implied in a demurrer, the occasion to stigmatize the bank cannot be passed over, though ten long years have slumbered over the sin, and though Langdon Cheves himself must be branded as the usurer. The subscriber will no longer tax the time and patience of the house by pursuing into their microscopic details, a series of inculpations and criminations, not one of which, in his deliberate opinion, has a shadow of reasonable foundation. How could he consider otherwise than a waste of time, a prying scrutiny into the question-Who of the stockholders have usually voted at the election of the directors? Who were the voters present? And who held the proxies of the absent? When it is notorious that in this, as in all similar institutions, whose stockholders have confidence in their presiding officer, the great difficulty is to prevail upon the stockholders to attend and vote at the elections at all. How could he consider as a grievance to be probed to the quick, and reported upon to the house, that whereas the charter provides that there shall be twenty-five directors, there are at this very hour only twenty-four, because the stockholders at their annual meeting did elect Nicholas Biddle one of their directors, and the president of the United States did nominate, and, by and with the advice of the Senate, did appoint the same Nicholas Biddle one of the five directors on the part of the government. Such has for several years been the fact, and the conclusion naturally and justly to be drawn from it is, that Mr. Biddle has enjoyed the unquestioning and entire confidence, both of the government and of the individual stockholders. The reason of the double election has been this: the presdent of the bank is elected by the directors on the first Monday of January, and none but a director is eligible to the office of president. The nomination of government directors sometimes lingers in the Senate, until after the first Monday in January. The stockholders, therefore, elect Mr. Biddle as one of their directors, that he may with certainty be re-eligible as president. When the nomination of Mr. Biddle, as a government director, has been completed in time to be known to the stockholders at their election, they have chosen him; when it has not, he has been appointed and elected. And thus there are only twenty-four instead of twenty-five directors. In all former years, however, Mr.Biddle has declined accepting the appointment as a government director, and his place has been supplied. So that, until the present year, the board of directors has been full. The effect of his not declining the appointment from the government the present year is, that he is removable from office at the pleasure of the president of the United States. Ten years long, has this confidence been enjoyed and justified by that distinguished citizen and honorable man. No question had ever been insidiously started, how many proxies he held? The more he held, the more extensive was the confidence of the stockholders in him. No scruple had ever crossed the mind of any president of the United States, to deter him from nominating him year after year as a government director. Not a voice had ever been raised in the Senate to cause their hesitation to confirm his appointment, and so perfectly in harmony with this confidence has been that of the public, that not a rumour has ever been raised of a prospect, or even of a project for the election of any other person as president in his place. After ten years of of fair fame,thus sustained without an adverse whisper being heard, it has been a source of deep mortification to the subscriber to see the character and feelings of such a citizen treated by a committee of the house of representatives as if he had been an inmate fresh issued from a penitentiary to preside over the Bank of the United States. As an exemplification of this fact, it might be sufficient to refer to the tone of the majority report, from beginning to end; to the consciousness of authora tive power which pervades all its pages, unmingled with that courtesy which arrays even authority itself in the ornaments of a meek and quiet spirit-to the continual contestation even of facts stated by the president of the bank upon oath-to expressions so divested of all semblance of delicacy as these, that "the bank as it collects the revenue, knows, or ought to know, that it will be called upon by the government to re-imburse it." The subscriber forbears, for he finds it difficult to express his sensations without using terms obnoxious to the same criticism which he is compelled to apply to these. A large portion of the same report, and that with which it closes, consists of an elaborate argumentative parallel between the condition of the bank in 1819, when it is stated to have been upon the verge of bankruptcy, and its present condition. Without entering into the particulars of this disquisition, the subscriber will close this his own report, with a few general remarks concerning it. And in the first place he observes, that the bank cannot with any propriety be said to have been upon the verge of bankruptcy in 1819. It did not suspend specie payments for an hour—it had met with heavy losses its capital had not been punctually paid in, conformable to its charter. Imprudent and irregular, if not fraudulent speculations in its stock, had been allowed and shared by one or more of its directors. It had failed in the indiscreet attempts to make all its bills payable at all its branches. Had a severe pressure come upon it, a short interval might have ensued during which it might have suspended cash payments, and that would greatly, perhaps permanently, have affected its credit. But the bank was never near the verge of bankruptcy. The majority report itself, states that in April 1819, when its difficulties were the greatest, its means of specie, notes of other banks, and funded debt, amounted to upwards of ten millions of dollars, while the whole demands which could come against it in the same month, amounted to only about 14 millions. There is nothing like an approach to bankruptcy in this. But the pressure on the bank in 1819 did not proceed from the errors or imprudence of the corporation itself only. There is an ebbing and flowing of the tide of commerce almost, though irregularly, periodically throughout the world, and there is a sort of galvanic sympathy in the contractions and expansions of the great monied institutions in both hemispheres. The restoration of specie payments by the Bank of England, in 1817 and 1818, undoubtedly produced an immense pressure upon the circulation, and of course upon the commerce of the world. All paper circulation beyond the amount representing the precious metals, is fictitious capital, or rather it is credit. The question whether the balance of moral influence,upon the condition of men arising from circulating credit and banking, be a blessing or a curse, is a speculation for the closet. Money has long, and upon divine authority, been pronounced the "root of all evil," and paper money shares in its full proportion the character of its prototype. Power for good, is power for evil, even in the hands of Omnipotence. Had there been in 1819, no Bank of the United States, the pressure must have been incomparable greater, and the ruin far more widely spread than it was. The opinions exhibited in this portion of the majority report, are produced in the interrogatories of the member of the committee to the president of the bank appended to it. The subscriber will barely refer to the answers by the president of the bank, which render all further discussion of them superfluous. But if it were true, that the condition of the bank in 1819, was upon the verge of bankruptcy, and if it were also true that the present condition of the bank were of exact resemblance to its deplorable state at that time, the discretion, the patriotism, and the humanity of the committee could scarcely have sanctioned the disclosure of so disastrous a secret to the world. The market price of the bank stock at the time when the inquisition 343 there was over-trading to a considerable extent in the into the affairs of the bank was instituted, was at an advance of at least 25 per cent. upon its nominal value. In spite of all the denunciation against it, in spite of all the learned arguments, all the arithmetical calculations, all the statistical theorems, corollaries, and demonstrations, with which it had been for years assailed, in and out of congress, the price current of bank stock,the thermometer of public confidence, was still at 25 per cent. advance upon the shares. If the majority of the committee had really made the discovery that the affairs of the bank were in such a desperate state, from the extraordinary pressure upon the money market and the depression of trade, considering the large stake which the nation holds in the stock of the bank, it would have been but prudent forecast in the majority of the committee, and would have manifested a tender regard for the public interest, to have reserved the exposure of this crisis The president of the bank very forcibly stated to the of terror and dismay, until it shall have exploded or committee, the extremely delicate position in which the passed away. In such emergencies, the most formida-institution stands towards the commercial community in ble of all dangers to banking institutions is the spread- this respect. So long as the bank keeps within the ing of a panic among its creditors. line of safe operations upon its own funds, it leaves those of commerce to regulate themselves. seeks to increase nor diminish them. It neither whatever cause, there is among the merchants a tendenWhen, from cy to over-trading, it is not the province of the bank, directly, to interpose against it; for that would be to exercise an invidious and improper control over business with which it has but a remote concern. neral duty is to grant facilities while it has disposable funds uninvested. The point at which it ought to stay its hand, is a matter of difficulty to determine, and upon which the soundest discretion may come to different results in different men. From the first appearance of the impending pressure, the measures of the president and directors of the bank appear to the subscriber to have been marked with great judgment, and to have been continued and modified according to the progress of events, with equal steadiness of purpose, and benevolence of intention. The issues and circulation of the bank paper are undoubtedly large, and there has been for some months a severe pressure, though not a universal one, on the money market. The president and directors of the bank, became aware of this pressure on its first approach, and took measures of precaution as early as October last, to prepare for meeting it, and breaking its force. On the 7th of that month, a circular was issued to the cashiers of all the branches, noticing the pressure which was to be expected, particularly upon the offices at Philadelphia and New York; instructing them so to shape their business as to furnish them so far as might be practicable with the means which were likely to be required. At that time the government had given notice of a payment of six millions of funded debt to be paid on the first of January then next. But it had gone further, and authorized the creditors thus to be paid off in January, to claim their payments even at any time of the preceding quarter, although the government had in deposit scarcely half the sum required for that anticipated payment. The bank made no complaint, but took this measure of precaution. The same vigilant and restrictive policy was pursued through the winter and spring, except when mollified by the dispensations of Providence in the overflowings of the Ohio at Cincinnati and and at Louisville, Το Its ge But, whether the corporation issues its circulation with liberality, or curtails it with prudent caution, it equally meets the censure of the majority report. After quoting two passages from a report of Mr. Rush, commending the bank for its prudence in limiting the amount of its circulation, it gives two statements, showing that, between August 1828, and the first of April last, the circulation had been augmented to what it At these places, the credits of the bank had been ve- calls the astonishing increase of upwards of ten millions ry large; yet, immediately upon being informed of this in less than four years. But it omits all notice of two visitation of calamity, every facility was again extended facts which, if duly considered, would have taken off by the direction of the president and directors at Phila- all the edge of astonishment. The first is that, during delphia, to those who had suffered by the floods. the same interval, the seven millions of stock, held by Shortly after, the secretary of the treasury makes a the government, were re-paid. The second, that upwards confidential intimation of a wish to pay off six millions of three millions of the public debt, held by the bank, of three per cent, stocks on the first of July next. were paid off: so that the astonishing increase of circuease the pressure upon the commerce of New York, and lation is a mere re-investment of capital, which had been to save the bank from curtailing the discounts of the returned upon the hands of the bank, and only the merchants' debts to government, for duties, the presi- substitution of one species of productive property for dent proceeds to Washington, and in a conference with another. And scarcely has the sentence of censure the secretary of the treasury, suggests the expediency been expressed in the report, but it turns and comof postponing until the first of October, the payment of plains, and appeals to the circular addressed to the the six millions of 3 per cent. stock. The secretary ac- branches, and correspondence with them since Octocedes to this arrangement, the bank stipulating to pay ber last, that the chief object of the bank has been the quarter's interest, in consideration of having, du- barely to sustain itself; and that, since that time, the ring the interval, the use of the money; and this adjust-bank has not increased its facilities to the trading comment, so advantageous to the government, so provident munity, in any part of the Union. of the interests of the stockholders,so beneficient to the debtors, both of the government and of the bank, and so facilitating to the collection of the revenue at a time of considerable commercial embarrassment, is seized upon in the majority report as if the dearth of reasonable cause of complaint had bred a famine, and harped upon as if it had been the convulsive grasp of the bank in the very last agonies of bankruptcy. Now all this has led the mind of the subscriber, reflecting upon it with all the anxious intensity of which it is capable, to a directly opposite conclusion. That The subscriber believes that nothing can be more delusive than the parallel drawn, in the majority report, between the state and condition of the bank in 1819, and in 1832; but that report has subjected itself to one test which is already disclosing the true character of its reasoning. It has ventured upon the field of prophecy, and the failure of its predictions is already brightening into demonstration." In the anticipation that there will be a curtailment of discounts for several months to come, the foresight of the majority report is probably correct. This, of course, that to fill it up according to the comprehensiveness of its conception and the multifarious complication of its details, a committee appointed at this time, which should sit the year round, and he might safely add night and day, would, at the expiration of the charter of the present bank, be left, like the present committee, with a multitude of subjects of complaint, which they would be "compelled to abandon for the want of time." must occasionally happen in all banking establishments. It is incidental to all the unavoidable fluctuations of trade, and is believed to be at this time indispensable, not only to the bank, but to the whole commercial community. This operation has, indeed, been quietly proceeding in the Bank of the United States, ever since the circular of 7th October 1831; which the majority report turns to so large account for its purposes. It has been in progress, while, at the With regard to the numerous matters of vital importsame time, the direction of the bank has been reserving ance in the re-organization of the bank, specie payand husbanding, and prudently applying the means to ments, domestic and foreign exchanges, investments in the commercial portion of our fellow citizens, of meet-public debt by the bank in 1824 and 1825, and its abiliing and passing through this critical emergency, with ty to make loans to the government, the influence of as little detriment to the public and to individuals as the operations of the bank upon trade, on the increase possible. This would explain, one would think, very of the paper-circulation of the bank, its agency in disatisfactorily, the fact stated in the letter of the presi- minishing or enlarging the circulation of local banks, dent of the bank to the secretary of the treasury, and the means of permanently regulating our circulaof the 29th of March last, that, in compliance with tion so as to prevent its injurious effects upon the trade an intimation from the collector at New York, an ex- and currency of the country, concerning which the tension of loans had been promptly acceded to, in committee, or rather one of its members, submitted a the preceding month of February, to assist the mercan. number of inquiries to the president of the bank: a tile debtors of the government in the punctual payment copy of the answers of the president of the bank to of their bonds; without needing an argument such as that these inquiries has already been submitted to the house. of the majority report against this plain and direct asser- It is hoped they will be satisfactory to the house, and tion of a very notorious and unquestionable fact. The that they will contribute with other considerations to author of the report finds, by reference to the weekly the conclusion that the bank of the United States ought, statement of the office at New York, from July 1831, with such modifications as may be deemed expedient to April 1832, no aggregate increase of loans; but, on by the legislature, to be immediately re-chartered. the contrary, a reduction of the amount. He finds that The subscriber has long entertained the opinion, that the total amount of discounts at the New York branch, the existence of a national bank is indissolubly connectbetween the 4th of October 1831, and the 28th of Marched with the continuance of our national union. 1832, was actually diminished $468,447 17, while, du- fiscal operations of the government in all its branches, ring the same time, the bonds paid at that port amount- he believes, cannot, without the aid of such an institued to between nine and ten millions of dollars. Can it tion, be conducted, he will not say well, but at all. He be imagined that he discovers in this statement, compa- does not say that the present bank of the United States, red with that in the letter from the president of the is indispensable, and his mind has some times hesitated bank, to which he refers, not an unanswerable demon- upon the question, whether at the expiration of the stra tion of the prudence as well as of the liberality with present charter of the bank, the establishment of anwhich the affairs of the bank have, in this respect, been other, though similar institution, might not be more exconducted, but an occasion of contesting, by unavoida- pedient than the renewal of the charter. Inclining ble implication, the veracity of the president of the rather to the latter of these measures before the instibank?-and this, in a report which, upon an immediate-tution of this inquiry, he has been very strongly conly preceding page, charges the bank with "the loss of five millions of its specie." On the first perusal of the report, the subscriber was himself greatly at a loss to know what was meant by this "loss of five million of its specie," of which he was very sure that no evidence had been given to the committee; and it was only after a repeated examination of the paragraph in comparison with another part of the report, that he found this form of expression was only an ingenious mode of accusing the bank of a loss of five millions of specie between the first of September and the first of April, because there was nearly that amount more of specie in the funds of the bank at the former period than at the latter. This construction, by which payment of debts is converted into loss of specie, may serve as a consolation for the disappointment arising from the inability to convict the bank of any other serious loss since 1819. With regard to the increase of the number of the branches, to the precise manner in which the annual election of directors has been conducted, to the alarming magnitude of the sums recently paid for printing, to the sums paid to the solicitors and counsellors, distinct from those paid to attorneys, to the number of useful documents not referable to any particular head, and to the many statements called for, which the business of the bank, and the shortness of the time allowed for the investigation, would not admit to be furnished, the subscriber will pass over all these subjects as they are passed over by the majority of the committee, with the expression of his satisfaction that the labours of the committee upon them were abridged by the march of time, and of his hope that no committee of congress will ever again be called to an investigation upon a plan of such interminable outline. He is convinced, The firmed in that opinion by the result of the investigation in which he has shared. The management of the affairs of the corporation during the administration of the present president, not exempt from human error and infirmity, has yet appeared to him marked with all the characters of sound judg ment, of liberal spirit, of benevolent feeling, and of irreproachable integrity. A large proportion of its officers in subordinate trusts are of the Society of Friends, a class of citizens peculiarly qualified for the performance of duties, and the exercise of qualities appropriate to the successful management of monied establishmentsindustry, punctuality, temperance, and a conscientious discharge of all moral obligations. In considering the numerous and important public services, and the large contributions of the present bank to the government and people of the United States, he thinks the least return which they are justly authorized to expect from the equity of the nation, is the renewal of their charter. The benefits and profits of the bank have been enjoyed by the nation, far beyond those shared by the individual stockholders. Besides the bonus of a million and a half of dollars paid to the public treasury for the charter-besides the saving of the expense of loan offices for the payment of the public debt, principle and interest-besides the obligation of transferring the Government funds to and from every part of the Union, as the public exigencies require-the nation has held one fifth part of the stock from the commencement of the institution to this time, without payment of one dollar to its capital, until the last two years. It has received the dividends in common with the other stockholders; has exercised the exclusive right of appointing one-fifth of the directors = has been supplied with loans whenever the occasions of NEW PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. the government have needed them upon terms more advantageous to the public than could have been secured from any other institution or company of individuals; while the bank, by its salutary control, and its universally extended credit, has compelled the restoration of cash payments and furnished a currency equivalent, in substantial value, to specie, throughout the union. These have been the advantages of the bank to the nation, while the individual stockholders have realized upon their invested capitals, scarcely more than a yearly interest of six per cent, even including the advance of the stock at this time in the market. This circumstance has afforded proof, nothing short of demonstration, of the rashness and folly of all those projects for the establishment of a new bank, which have been presented to congress, with a lure of enormous premiums for the grant of a charter. doubt that the destruction of such an establishment The subscriber has no would be speedy and inevitable, either by the absorption of all its profits to pay the premium or by forcing its direction into a wild and reckless extent of business, ruinous to the commerce of the country, not less than to the bank itself. In considering the expediency of renewing the charter, the subscriber discards all considerations of the interests or wishes-not only of the president and directors of the bank, but of all the individual stockholders of the corporation. In the question between chartering a new corporation, and re-chartering the old one, if the interests of the individual adventurers are to be considered at all, like opposite quantities in algebra, they annul each other. It is the public interest alone that can determine the question, and in that view alone, the subscriber would prefer the renewal of this institution to the establishment of another. The present establishment has the advantage of long experience, and of a system matured by the acquired knowledge of many years, and by the correction of its own errors. That knowledge has been purchased at no inconsiderable cost, and a set of new undertakers would most probably have to pass through a similar noviciate. The result of his examination has been an entire conviction that with a view to the public interest alone, the charter of the bank of the United States ought forthwith to be renewed. In the free and unreserved animadversion upon the course of proceedings pursued in this investigation by the majority of the committee, and upon the consequences to which they necessarily led; which he has felt it his duty to indulge, he trusts it will not be understood as his intention to speak in censure of any individual member of the committee. He imputes no injustice of intention to any one, even where he sees it most flagrant in the result of measures. If in the examination of the books and proceedings of the bank, a penetrating and severe scrutiny into the official conduct of the president and directors of that institution was within the scope of the labors of the committee, and he has no doubt it was, he was equally clear in the conviction that the resolution of the house gave them no right, and that the first principle of national justice denied them the right, to bring before themselves for censure or vindication the persons or the concerns of any other individual. The majority of the committee thought otherwise. Editors of newspapers, printers, attorneys, counsellors, solicitors, brokers, members of congress, and officers of government, they thought came fairly to be hunted down, if they had an account in bank, because the committee were authorized to examine the books and the proceedings of the corporation. They thought this a liberal construction of their power. Differing from them in their definition of liberality, he has seen no cause to question the liberality of disposition of any one of them, according to their sense of the term. He does all possible justice to their intentions, though often and essentially dissenting from their reasoning, and from their philology. Liberality, in his vocabula VOL. IX. 44 345 ry, is a word of very different import, and as unintelligible to them, as in theirs it is to him. mark, he deems it a tribute of candor to except the member of the committee who constituted the majority, From this reand the generosity of whose nature licensed the report made by the chairman of the committee to the house. That same generosity of his nature impelled him, when clare, that in the whole course of this investigation, he the report was presented, to rise in his place, and dehad seen in the conduct of the president and directors of the bank nothing inconsistent with the purest honor and integrity. Had that same candid and explicit declaration, due, as the subscriber believes, to the most rigorous justice, been made by the other members who sanctioned the majority report, many a painful remark in the paper now submitted, perhaps the whole paper the honor of injured worth, is, in his opinion, among itself, would have been suppressed. But to vindicate the first of moral obligations, and in concluding these observations, he would say to every individual of the house, and to every fellow citizen of the nation, inquisitive of the cause of any over-anxious sensibility to immay here find putations upon the good name of other men which they "When truth and virtue an affront endures, The offence is mine, my friend, and should be yours." JOHN Q. ADAMS. May 14th, 1832. I concur fully in all the statements made and principles developed in the above report. J. G. WATMOUGH. NEW PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. communicants, pewholders and worshippers in the SeAt an adjourned meeting of a number of individuals, cond Presbyterian Church in the city of Philadelphia, late under the pastoral care of the Rev. Joseph Sanford, convened in the Hall of the Franklin Institute, agreeably to public notice, on the 21st of May, 1832, for the purpose of adopting the requisite regular measures, and making the necessary arrangements for the organization of a new Presbyterian Church, ton South Carolina, being present was chosen ModeThe Rev. Dr. AARON W. LELAND of Charlesrator, and MATTHEW NEWKIRK, was appointed Secretary of the meeting. to the Throne of Grace by the Moderator, the following After a hymn had been sung and a prayer offered up resolutions were offered and unanimously adopted. times to acknowledge our obligations to Almighty God, Resolved, That while we feel it a privilege at all and our entire dependence upon him, we desire especially under the painful circumstances in which we are convened deeply to feel this dependence, and to cast ourselves on his gracious direction and favor. Resolved, That in view of the grievances to which we feel ourselves subjected in the Church to which we are attached, we now proceed to the adoption of measures for the purpose of organizing a new church and congregation upon the principles and under the form of government of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. Resolved, That the communicants of the Second Presbyterian Church respectfully request certificates of good standing from the Second Church to which they are now attached, as soon as may be thought expedient, with a view of regularly carrying into effect the previ ous resolutions. Resolved, That the communicants thus dismissed and recommended, and the other worshippers of the new church, as soon as convenient, request Presbytery to take measures to effect the organization above specified, and that M. L. Bevan, M. Newkirk and William Wallace, be a committee for that purpose. |