And now, Sir, is it possible,—­is it possible that twelve millions of intelligent people can be expected voluntarily to subject themselves to severe distress, of unknown duration, for the purpose of making trial of an experiment like this?  Will a nation that is intelligent, well informed of its own interest, enlightened, and capable of self-government, submit to suffer embarrassment in all its pursuits, loss of capital, loss of employment, and a sudden and dead stop in its onward movement in the path of prosperity and wealth, until it shall be ascertained whether this new-hatched theory shall answer the hopes of those who have devised it?  Is the country to be persuaded to bear every thing, and bear patiently, until the operation of such an experiment, adopted for such an avowed object, and adopted, too, without the co-operation or consent of Congress, and by the executive power alone, shall exhibit its results?

In the name of the hundreds of thousands of our suffering fellow-citizens, I ask, for what reasonable end is this experiment to be tried?  What great and good object, worth so much cost, is it to accomplish?  What enormous evil is to be remedied by all this inconvenience and all this suffering?  What great calamity is to be averted?  Have the people thronged our doors, and loaded our tables with petitions for relief against the pressure of some political mischief, some notorious misrule, which this experiment is to redress?  Has it been resorted to in an hour of misfortune, calamity, or peril, to save the state?  Is it a measure of remedy, yielded to the importunate cries of an agitated and distressed nation?  Far, Sir, very far from all this.  There was no calamity, there was no suffering, there was no peril, when these measures began.  At the moment when this experiment was entered upon, these twelve millions of people were prosperous and happy, not only beyond the example of all others, but even beyond their own example in times past.

There was no pressure of public or private distress throughout the whole land.  All business was prosperous, all industry was rewarded, and cheerfulness and content universally prevailed.  Yet, in the midst of all this enjoyment, with so much to heighten and so little to mar it, this experiment comes upon us, to harass and oppress us at present, and to affright us for the future.  Sir, it is incredible; the world abroad will not believe it; it is difficult even for us to credit, who see it with our own eyes, that the country, at such a moment, should put itself upon an experiment fraught with such immediate and overwhelming evils, and threatening the property and the employments of the people, and all their social and political blessings, with severe and long-enduring future inflictions.

And this experiment, with all its cost, is to be tried, for what?  Why, simply, Sir, to enable us to try another “experiment”; and that other experiment is, to see whether an exclusive specie currency may not be better than a currency partly specie and partly bank paper!  The object which it is hoped we may effect, by patiently treading this path of endurance, is to banish all bank paper, of all kinds, and to have coined money, and coined money only, as the actual currency of the country!