Alexandria Gazette

MR. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S
Remarks in the House of Representatives
On Monday, the 28th ult., while the Navy
Pension Fund Bill was under discussion.

In the Report referred to, the statement of
the Secretary of the Navy was, that the stocks
at present held by the Navy pension fund
were:

City of Cincinnati 5 per cent
$100,000
City of Washington 5 per cent
33,339
Bank of Washington
11,000
Union Bank of Georgetown
11,400

The nominal value was put at $155,733, and
then came the note that all these stocks were
depreciated in value, and that some of them
were altogether unsaleable. Here, to be sure,
were no State debts; but he knew that there
were debts due from several important points
of the Union. There was $100,000 in city of
Cincinnati 5 per cent stock What operation
that had on the elections in the city of Cincinnati,
he would not undertake to say; but we
were now told that it was unsaleable-
and that an appropriation of money was wanted
to supply the amount which that stock
should have provided for.

Nor was this all. About the 1st of September,
1833, the sum of five hundred and nine
thousand dollars and upwards was deposited
in the Mint at Philadelphia in gold-in mint
drops-a sacred trust which the United States
had accepted upon the pledge of their faith to
keep it whole, entire, for the purposes for which
it had been given by a foreigner. Within three
days the five hundred and nine thousand dollars
were on their way to Arkansas to make a bank.
Mr. A. (who was here scarcely heard by the
Reporter) was understood to say that the
member of this House from the State of Arkansas
had a quick scent of the moneys that
were coming into the Treasury. They were
not as yet come; and in the bill making appropriations
for the support of the Academy at
West Point, in the sixth section, upon the last
day of the session, under the operation of the
previous question, a provision was inserted authorizing
the President and the Secretary of
the Treasury to loan to the States that sum
of money when it should come into the Treasury.
This was three months beforehand, and
three days after the money was received, the
plan was carried into execution.

Now, we had heard of British gold carrying
the elections which had just gone off-not in
favor of the present incumbent of the Presidential
Chair, but against him. There he (Mr. A.)
put his finger upon $509,000 of British gold
which contributed, so far as it could go, to the
re-election of the present Executive Magistrate;
and he (Mr. A.) thought he had shown the
means by which it was done Go to the State of
Arkansas. The dollars are not there, but
they were there and they were sent there
from the Mint of the United States. Here
was policy-profound policy-economy -democracy;
and all this, too, accompanied with
so great a horror at the idea of assuming
State debts, that the hair of gentlemen stood
on end at the mere mention of the possibility
of such a thing. Was not here a debt of the
State of Arkansas of half a million of dollars?
Had not the General Government assumed
that debt? Had they not employed trust money?
If Arkansas should declare itself insolvent
to-morrow, Congress must pay the debt;
they had assumed it. Arkansas had but
one Representative on this floor. Now if
Congress assumed debts of Arkansas, to create
banks or any other purpose, what did the
rule of justice require if the State of N. York
came here and called upon Congress to assume
her debts and take her bonds? Twenty
millions of dollars! The State of N. York
had a right to come and demand that Congress
should take twenty millions of dollars
of her bonds as a matter of right, Congress
having done the same thing with Arkansas.
What would be the rule of justice with Pennsylvania?
She had a right to demand all,
$30,000,000. He could very easily make up a
sum of two hundred millions, by doing nothing
more than just carrying out the very principle
on which the sum of $509,000 of gold-
British gold-went into the coffers of the
State of Arkansas to make a bank.

He had desired a long time to say this much
to the House; and he said it now, although a
little out of order, because he had never been
allowed to say it in order. (Laughter.) At
the last session the House would not hear him
upon any thing; and it was that consideration
which induced him to offer the resolutions he
had read, and which gave something like a
sample of these things. He offered them after
the very message calling for $50,000 for this
very object had come in. But no, it was not
in order, and there was a gentleman here who
cried out "I object!" (General laughter.)-
He (Mr. A.) was not heard by the House, but
he had now been heard; and he hoped that
when he should again offer these resolutions,
as he wished to do, they might at least be allowed
to go on the journal as a record, to
show that such propositions had been offered.
Those resolutions went utterly and entirely
against the system of purchasing State bonds
above par and selling them fifty or sixty per
cent. below par. He said that, so far as it
went, it was an assumption of State debts;
and if gentlemen were so averse to the assumption
of State debts as they professed to
be, he hoped they would put a stop to this
course of things. One of his resolutions was
to prohibit the purchase in future of any State
bonds. He considered it not only an extremely
impolitic and excessively improper
mode of assuming State debts, if they must
be assumed at all, but as being amongst the
most corrupting things ever done by this Government.
He had specified this sale of half
a million of dollars of British gold to the State
of Arkansas; but the same course of observation
might be pursued; for that was not
the only State which had been treated in the
same way. He wished the whole subject to
be looked into, and, with the blessing of God,
it should be looked into at the next session.-
He did not expect that it would be this session.
He had, he knew, travelled somewhat
out of the record, and had seized this opportunity
to open to the House, and, so far as he
could, to the nation, what was the system
which had been pursued-in what manner
the funds of the nation-trust funds-
had been, and continued to be, employed
by the present Administration-continued, at all
events, so long as there was an election
ahead.

There was one further question which he
wished to be considered; that was, to ascertain
exactly how much permanent irredeemable
debt had been fastened on this nation by
the present Administration, the head of which
and the financier of which said that they
were opposed to all national debt. The Secretary
of the Treasury had expressly said
this year that he was opposed to all debts in
time of peace. Now, that officer was a great
friend of Mr. Jefferson: and he (Mr. A.)
would ask him what he thought of $15,000,000
paid for the purchase of Louisiana? He
would ask him what he thought of $5,000,000
(of borrowed money) paid for the purchase of
Florida? A gentleman before him (Mr.
Downing) thought that he (Mr A.) was a little
pledged in that; but then it was to be considered
that he had never pledged himself against
a national debt. The great secret of all national
debts was to make a good bargain; and
if an Administration did that, they would not
come here with their homilies about national
debts. Let them tell us they were against
a national debt when it was against the national
interest; but when the national interest
requires it, let the debt be contracted
on the best terms, and let it be paid honestly.
That was the rule of private individuals.
and it was the rule of nations; and it was
a false principle for the head and the financier
of a nation to say, we go against all debts in
time of peace. The President told us in his
Message that he was against a national debt
and a national bank, and that he always had
been. Then he (Mr. A.) would say that, being
so, the President was opposed to what
might be very useful to the interests of the
nation.

But more than this-there were debts of
millions upon millions which had been made.
All our Indian treaties-(and there was now a
bill before the House, reported by the chairman
of the Committee of Ways and Means,
making appropriations of six or seven hundred
thousand dollars for Indian annuities)-what,
he would ask, were all our Indian treaties but
national debts? What were all the sums of
money given to Indians for their lands? What
was all this but a national debt? A sacred
debt which the Government was bound to pay
and if the Choctaws and the Chickasaws, and
he knew not how many other tribes, were not
extinguished, as seemed to be the policy, the
Government, so long as it existed, would have
to pay an annual debt to them. The Government
had only now to provide the interest-
$600,000, that was to say on a debt of ten millions,
at 6 per cent. Of those $10,000,000 of
principal-how much he knew not-but he believed
at least four millions had already been
invested in State stocks, exactly as this half
million trust fund from the Smithsonian bequest
had been. And, now, the Secretary of
the Navy came and told us that these State
stocks were good for nothing: and yet, when
some of these States came to us and said "You
ought to help us-we are in distress-have
made 'bad bargains'-(as the gentleman from
Florida says)-these debts are not extravagant
debts-they are not for luxuries-we have
not been wasting the public moneys-these are
debts which, in the long run, will pay you heavy
interest, and more than pay for themselves
-you must take a part of them,"-the exclamation
was one of horror at the idea of paying
State debts. That was the answer. and
he wished gentlemen who thought this thing
so horrible, to make the distinction, and tell
him whether the Government had not assumed
these four or five millions of debts to the
States by investing the treasure of the Government,
and, still more, the mere trust funds
of the Government, in State stocks, taking the
bonds of those States.

He could wish to say a great deal more on
this subject, but he believed he had said
enough now to open it to the consideration of
members. It included within itself the policy
of this nation, not only as regarded its own
debts, but the respective debts of the several
States of the Union. It included the general
consideration of a national debt. and, probably,
of a national bank. It included the justice
of this nation to all the Indian tribes to
which the Government had pledged large sums
of money, and then spent them by investing
them in State stocks.