doubts whether the bank could be put into
operation, but they expressed hopes also, and they pledged themselves to
do the best they could to advance it. And as the commercial interests
were in its favor, as the administration was new and fresh and popular,
and the people were desirous to have something done, a great earnestness
was felt that that bill should be tried.

It was sent to the Senate at the Senate's request, and by the Senate it
was rejected. Another bill was reported in the Senate, without the
provision requiring the consent of the States to branches, was discussed
for six weeks or two months, and then could not pass even a Whig Senate.
Here was the origin of distrust, disunion, and resentment.

I will not pursue the unhappy narrative of the latter part of the
session of 1841. Men had begun to grow excited and angry and resentful.
I expressed the opinion, at an early period, to all those to whom I was
entitled to speak, that it would be a great deal better to forbear
further action at present. That opinion, as expressed to the two Whig
Senators from Massachusetts, is before the public. I wished Congress to
give time for consultation to take place, for harmony to be restored;
because I looked for no good, except from the united and harmonious
action of all the branches of the Whig government. I suppose that
counsel was not good, certainly it was not followed. I need not add the
comment.

This brings us, as far as concerns the questions of currency, to the
last session of Congress. Early in that session the Secretary of the
Treasury sent in a plan of an exchequer. It met with little favor in
either House, and therefore it is necessary for me, Gentlemen, lest the
whole burden fall on others, to say that it had my hearty, sincere, and
entire approbation. Gentlemen, I hope that I have not manifested through
my public life a very overweening confidence in my own judgment, or a
very unreasonable unwillingness to accept the views of others. But there
are some subjects on which I feel entitled to pay some respect to my own
opinion. The subject of currency, Gentlemen, has been the study of my
life. Thirty years ago, a little before my entrance into the House of
Representatives, the questions connected with a mixed currency,
involving the proper relation of paper to specie, and the proper means
of restricting an excessive issue of paper, came to be discussed by the
most acute and well-disciplined understandings in En