eing
interested in anything I may be able to say. This circumstance casts
a damp upon my spirits, which I am sure I shall be unable to overcome
during the evening. But enough of preface.

The subject heretofore and now to be discussed is the subtreasury scheme
of the present administration, as a means of collecting, safe-keeping,
transferring, and disbursing, the revenues of the nation, as contrasted
with a national bank for the same purposes. Mr. Douglas has said that we
(the Whigs) have not dared to meet them (the Locos) in argument on this
question. I protest against this assertion. I assert that we have again
and again, during this discussion, urged facts and arguments against
the subtreasury which they have neither dared to deny nor attempted to
answer. But lest some may be led to believe that we really wish to avoid
the question, I now propose, in my humble way, to urge those arguments
again; at the same time begging the audience to mark well the positions
I shall take and the proof I shall offer to sustain them, and that they
will not again permit Mr. Douglas or his friends to escape the force of
them by a round and groundless assertion that we "dare not meet them in
argument."

Of the subtreasury, then, as contrasted with a national bank for the
before-enumerated purposes, I lay down the following propositions, to
wit: (1) It will injuriously affect the community by its operation on
the circulating medium. (2) It will be a more expensive fiscal agent.
(3) It will be a less secure depository of the public money. To show
the truth of the first proposition, let us take a short review of our
condition under the operation of a national bank. It was the depository
of the public revenues. Between the collection of those revenues and the
disbursement of them by the government, the bank was permitted to and
did actually loan them out to individuals, and hence the large amount of
money actually collected for revenue purposes, which by any other
plan would have been idle a great portion of the time, was kept almost
constantly in circulation. Any person who will reflect that money is
only valuable while in circulation will readily perceive that any device
which will keep the government revenues in constant circulation, instead
of being locked up in idleness, is no inconsiderable advantage. By the
subtreasury the revenue is to be collected and kept in iron boxes until
the government wants it for disbursement; thus robbing t