make,
any proof, or any specification; if he has any thing to advance against
my opinions or my conduct, my honor or patriotism, I am still at home. I
am here. If not, then, so far as I am concerned, this discussion will
here terminate.

I will say a few words, before I resume my seat, on the motion now
pending. That motion is to strike out the specie-paying part of the
bill. I have a suspicion, Sir, that the motion will prevail. If it
should, it will leave a great vacuum; and how shall that vacuum be
filled?

The part proposed to be struck out is that which requires all debts to
government to be paid in specie. It makes a good provision for
government, and for public men, through all classes. The Secretary of
the Treasury, in his letter at the last session, was still more watchful
of the interests of the holders of office. He assured us, that, bad as
the times were, and notwithstanding the floods of bad paper which
deluged the country, members of Congress should get gold and silver. In
my opinion, Sir, this is beginning the use of good money in payments at
the wrong end of the list. If there be bad money in the country, I think
that Secretaries and other executive officers, and especially members of
Congress, should be the last to receive any good money; because they
have the power, if they will do their duty, and exercise it, of making
the money of the country good for all. I think, Sir, it was a leading
feature in Mr. Burke's famous bill for economical reform, that he
provided, first of all, for those who are least able to secure
themselves. Everybody else was to be well paid all they were entitled
to, before the ministers of the crown, and other political characters,
should have any thing. This seems to me very right. But we have a
precedent, Sir, in our own country, more directly to the purpose; and
as that which we now hope to strike out is the part of the bill
furnished or proposed originally by the honorable member from South
Carolina, it will naturally devolve on him to supply its place. I wish,
therefore, to draw his particular attention to this precedent, which I
am now about to produce.

Most members of the Senate will remember, that before the establishment
of this government, and before or about the time that the territory
which now constitutes the State of Tennessee was ceded to Congress, the
inhabitants of the eastern part of that territory established a
government for themselves, and called it the