resume my seat, I feel called on to make a few brief remarks on
a doctrine of fearful import which has been broached in the course of
this debate: the right to repeal laws granting bank charters, and of
course of railroads, turnpikes, and joint-stock companies. It is a
doctrine of fearful import, and calculated to do infinite mischief.
There are countless millions vested in such stocks, and it is a
description of property of the most delicate character. To touch it is
almost to destroy it. But while I enter my protest against all such
doctrines, I have been greatly alarmed with the thoughtless precipitancy
(not to use a stronger phrase) with which the most extensive and
dangerous privileges have been granted of late. It can end in no good,
and I fear may be the cause of convulsions hereafter. We already feel
the effects on the currency, which no one competent of judging can fail
to see is in an unsound condition. I must say (for truth compels me) I
have ever distrusted the banking system, at least in its present form,
both in this country and Great Britain. It will not stand the test of
time; but I trust that all shocks or sudden revolutions may be avoided,
and that it may gradually give way before some sounder and better
regulated system of credit which the growing intelligence of the age may
devise. That a better may be substituted I cannot doubt; but of what it
shall consist, and how it shall finally supersede the present uncertain
and fluctuating currency, time alone can determine. All that I can see
is, that the present must, one day or another, come to an end or be
greatly modified--if that indeed can save it from an entire overthrow.
It has within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

ON THE GOVERNMENT OF POLAND

From 'A Disquisition on Government'

It is then a great error to suppose that the government of the
concurrent majority is impracticable; or that it rests on a feeble
foundation. History furnishes many examples of such governments; and
among them one in which the principle was carried to an extreme that
would be thought impracticable, had it never existed. I refer to that of
Poland. In this it was carried to such an extreme that in the election
of her kings, the concurrence or acquiescence of every individual of the
nobles and gentry present, in an assembly numbering usually from one
hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand, was required to make a
choice; thus giving to each individual a veto on