oduce distress, the
fault will be its own." Sir, this is all no more than general statement,
without fact or argument to support it. We know what the management of
the bank has been, and we know the present state of its affairs. We can
judge, therefore, whether it be probable that its capital can be all
called in, and the circulation of its bills withdrawn, in three years
and nine months, by any discretion or prudence in management, without
producing distress. The bank has discounted liberally, in compliance
with the wants of the community. The amount due to it on loans and
discounts, in certain large divisions of the country, is great; so
great, that I do not perceive how any man can believe that it can be
paid, within the time now limited, without distress. Let us look at
known facts. Thirty millions of the capital of the bank are now out, on
loans and discounts, in the States on the Mississippi and its waters;
ten millions of which are loaned on the discount of bills of exchange,
foreign and domestic, and twenty millions on promissory notes. Now, Sir,
how is it possible that this vast amount can be collected in so short a
period without suffering, by any management whatever? We are to
remember, that, when the collection of this debt begins, at that same
time the existing medium of payment, that is, the circulation of the
bills of the bank, will begin also to be restrained and withdrawn; and
thus the means of payment must be limited just when the necessity of
making payment becomes pressing. The whole debt is to be paid, and
within the same time the whole circulation withdrawn.

The local banks, where there are such, will be able to afford little
assistance; because they themselves will feel a full share of the
pressure. They will not be in a condition to extend their discounts,
but, in all probability, obliged to curtail them. Whence, then, are the
means to come for paying this debt? and in what medium is payment to be
made? If all this may be done with but slight pressure on the community,
what course of conduct is to accomplish it? How is it to be done? What
other thirty millions are to supply the place of these thirty millions
now to be called in? What other circulation or medium of payment is to
be adopted in the place of the bills of the bank? The message, following
a singular train of argument, which had been used in this house, has a
loud lamentation upon the suffering of the Western States on account of
their