tate, in order to make our institutions fit exactly to any theory. It is better to follow the course and order of Providence, and suffer our general system of laws, like our habits, to accommodate itself slowly to our necessities, and to vary only with the gradual and almost imperceptible progress of time and experience."

It may be well for those who are disposed to reject the admonitions of the practical statesman and jurist of their own country for the dreaming speculations and paper theories of the old world, to pause and look around them. By a careful observation, and consulting the pages of history, they will find that in all countries where there have been no usury laws, the "rates of usuance " have been infinitely higher than where they have obtained. In Alabama the laws were repealed; the "market price" became 100 per cent.; a scene of ruin and distress ensued which caused their speedy reenactment with tenfold rigor. Look at Greece, which had no usury laws; and Rome, during the time her laws were not in force; interest was frequently from 50 to 60 per cent. Look now at the city of New York, where her "Isaacs of York" have ". 'virtually repealed" the laws; interest is 48 per cent. per annum. It is so plain that he who runs may read. The only measure of interest, after the usury laws are repealed, will be the necessity of the borrower,-that, and that alone, will be the rule by which to fix the price, and wo be to him who shall be compelled to pay it. A few can at any moment make the rate whatever they please, by refusing to loan or invest until the price reaches the mark set by their craving and insatiable appetites. To talk of "competition" among misers and usurers, is to talk of glutting the grave with victims;-for the grave will have ceased to yawn for its prey, death will have sickened at his trade, and the daughter of the horse-leech will have ceased to cry "give," before the usurer will say, "it is enough." However high wrought or refined the sentiment of the schools, or however perfect the demonstration upon abstract principles, it will "bite like a serpent and sting like an adder.”

When Rasselas, the prince of Abyssinia, meditated an escape from the happy valley, he invoked the aid of an artist who was desirous of improving upon the "barbarisms of the dark ages," or, in other words, he, like a modern philosopher, had thrown off the shackles of prejudice; he had "penetrated

the future," and learned that mere locomotion was beneath the dignity of man, that by making the proper exertion he could fly as well as walk, which he proceeded to prove to a demonstration. He discoursed with all the learning of Jeremy Bentham and his followers; he proved that water was a "denser and air a more subtile fluid; " that as men could swim in water by art, so they could fly in the air by proportioning their pinions to the resistance; in short, that swimming was flying in a denser, and flying was swimming in the more subtile fluid; and that the latter was as practicable as the former. His theory completed, he entered upon its practice. The funds. were raised, one year was spent, and the wings were ready. Now came the time when he was to throw off the "shackles of education and prejudice." Unlike most reformers, he was willing his first experiment should be tried upon himself. He stood upon the margin of the lake, doubtless congratulating himself upon being the pioneer in the principles of "natural right;" he cast one lingering look upon the planet which gave him birth; bade farewell to sublunary things; spread his glad pinions which were to waft him to heaven, and the next moment found himself horse-ponded in the lake. "O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!" A profitable and salutary lesson to those who are inclined to exchange the practical realities of life for the hare-brained speculations of ancient or modern theorists.

And now, sir, I have almost done. I have given but a few of the reasons which occur to me why the usury laws should not be repealed. I am aware I have spoken freely; it is a subject of deep interest to the country. I have arraigned the motives of no one; I have dealt with the subject alone. If I am to be followed by the Senator from the Fourth, I invite him to disprove the practical results which I have shown will inevitably follow a repeal. I invite him to lay aside his theories, and descend to practice; and while I invite no criticism upon my language, being "a plain, blunt man, who only speak right on," I desire him to put my arguments into his crucible, and heat up the fire of his eloquence and imagination "seven times hotter than it is wont to be heated." If they will not stand the "inquisition of the forge," I shall be glad to see them consumed; for while I have spoken freely, I have not done so in

vidiously. I have dealt with theories, whether of Jeremy Bentham or of others, without reserve. I have endeavored to "hang out my banner on the outer wall," and at the same time to do so in a just and proper spirit.

While the Senator from the Fourth is sheltered behind Jeremy Bentham, he will doubtless think my attempt to assail his impregnable citadel like storming Gibraltar with a pocket. pistol; but I have done so upon his invitation, and claim to have both my motives and courage appreciated for even attempting it. If I am annihilated in the struggle, I can say with Hannah More, in her sacred drama:

""Twill sweeten death

To know I had the honor to contend
With the dread son of Anak."

But if it should be my fortune, in my humble effort, to contribute in the remotest degree to save the most abject of the human race from the rapacity of the usurer, I shall be grateful and happy. As legislators we have a capacity for good or evil; we stand upon a narrow isthmus, between a pacific and tranquil sea on the one hand and a boisterous and shoreless ocean on the other. We may permit our ship of state to glide smoothly on in the one, or be sent adrift upon the turbulent billows of the other. We hold in our hands the destinies of millions," their life, their death, their bane and antidote are both before us." We may do much to ameliorate their condi tion, but more to entail upon them misery, woe, and degradation. In the elegant and beautiful language of the Senator from the Fourth, upon a previous occasion:

"We occupy but a point of space upon the surface of the broad and ceaseless current of time,-generation follows generation, as wave succeeds wave upon the ocean. But although the life of man is so utterly insignificant in point of duration; although his moral and physical powers bear the strong impress of imbecility; although he is not gifted with the capacity of strewing flowers in the paths of his successors, or of ameliorating for them the inevitable ills of life, yet with all this brevity and feebleness and incapacity, he may sow the seeds of lasting bitterness, and leave behind him the canker of dissolution.”

SPEECH

UPON THE GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE.

DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF NEW YORK, January 11th, 1840.

[This speech was made upon resolutions to refer to the proper Committees the various subjects presented for consideration by the second annual Message of Governor Seward. The occasion of reference is usually improved to settle political scores between the opposition and the administration, at least as far as relates to subjects called up by the message to be referred, and the speech before us is one following in that line of precedents; but it will be seen that it followed upon ample invitation or provocation on the part of the Governor. It should however be noted perhaps, that the change of tone commented on, between the first and second messages, might have been fairly attributable to the pecuniary revulsion which took place intermediate the two, if Governor Seward had chosen to present that natural solution, instead of striving out of the circumstances of the times to make a point against his political opponents.]

I am not prepared, Mr. President, to enter into a full discussion of the merits and demerits of the message; nor do I propose to do so. Its extreme length would preclude such an examination as it deserves, within a reasonable time. His Excellency has informed us that the value of fame is to be estimated by the length of time through which it endures and the space it occupies; and he seems to suppose that the value of an executive message should be estimated upon the same principle-its length.

I shall not now ask the indulgence of the Senate until I can separate the few grains of wheat it contains from the mountain of chaff, but will, for the present, content myself with calling the attention of the Senate and the people to a few of gross inconsistencies of position, and palpable misstatements

its

of facts. I regret that I feel bound to do So, lest my remarks may be deemed personally disrespectful or unkind to the Executive, which I will disavow in advance, and add, that the intercourse between the Governor and myself has been char. acterized on the part of his Excellency by fair and gentlemanly demeanor. It is officially, and not personally, that I desire to speak. I would moreover say that I do not hold it fair to criticise illiberally the acts of a high public functionary, while acting in the discharge of the duty imposed on him by the constitution and laws, so long as he contents himself with the discharge of his duties. He is the officer of the whole people, and in executing the duties of his office his acts are entitled to the most charitable and liberal construction. But when he descends from his high position to play the political partisan; becomes the assailant of his opponents, and under the imposing sanction of his official name, seeks to inculcate his favorite dogmas, he is so far the legitimate subject of criticism, and has no right to protect himself under the folds of his official mantle: he is then shorn of his strength, and is weak like other men.

The Constitution of this State declares that the Governor "shall communicate by message to the Legislature at every session, the condition of the State, and recommend such matters as he shall deem expedient." Under this clause of the Constitution, that distinguished dignitary has communicated by message to the Legislature at this session, not only the condition of the State, but he pretends to give the positions of political parties, and the position of the Senate and Assembly of 1838 upon engrossed bills. He has turned legislative historian-has entered the legislative burial-field and attempted to disinter the ashes of mouldering records, and incorporate their history in his message, not for the purpose of showing the condition of the State or recommending legislative action, but for no higher or worthier motive (for it could have no other) than showing which political party had amended a bill in a particular manner, and which had not; a matter clearly so irrelevant and impertinent that if a lawyer had, with no better excuse, inserted it in a pleading, it would have been stricken out on motion. In his message now under consideration, his Excellency says: