are intended for the good of the many instead of the few, for the benefit of the poor, and against the rich; and when I hear it proposed, at the same moment, to do away with the whole system of credit, and place all trade and commerce, therefore, in the hands of those who have adequate capital to carry them on without the use of any credit at all.  This, Sir, would be dividing society, by a precise, distinct, and well-defined line, into two classes; first, the small class, who have competent capital for trade, when credit is out of the question; and, secondly, the vastly numerous class of those whose living must become, in such a state of things, a mere manual occupation, without the use of capital or of any substitute for it.

Now, Sir, it is the effect of a well-regulated system of paper credit to break in upon this line thus dividing the many from the few, and to enable more or less of the more numerous class to pass over it, and to participate in the profits of capital by means of a safe and convenient substitute for capital; and thus to diffuse far more widely the general earnings, and therefore the general prosperity and happiness, of society.  Every man of observation must have witnessed, in this country, that men of heavy capital have constantly complained of bank circulation, and a consequent credit system, as injurious to the rights of capital.  They undoubtedly feel its effects.  All that is gained by the use of credit is just so much subtracted from the amount of their own accumulations, and so much the more has gone to the benefit of those who bestow their own labor and industry on capital in small amounts.  To the great majority, this has been of incalculable benefit in the United States; and therefore, Sir, whoever attempts the entire overthrow of the system of bank credit aims a deadly blow at the interest of that great and industrious class, who, having some capital, cannot, nevertheless, transact business without some credit.  He can mean nothing else, if he have any intelligible meaning at all, than to turn all such persons over to the long list of mere manual laborers.  What else can they do, with not enough of absolute capital, and with no credit?  This, Sir, this is the true tendency and the unavoidable result of these measures, which have been undertaken with the patriotic object of assisting the poor against the rich!

I am well aware that bank credit may be abused.  I know that there is another extreme, exactly the opposite of that of which I have now been speaking, and no less sedulously to be avoided.  I know that the issue of bank paper may become excessive; that depreciation will then follow; and that the evils, the losses, and the frauds consequent on a disordered currency fall on the rich and the poor together, but with especial weight of ruin on the poor.  I know that the system of bank credit must always rest on a specie basis, and that it constantly needs to be strictly guarded and properly restrained; and it may