Shall this effort of ours to readjust our finances and to save this large interest to our country be thwarted by a pretension on the part of the banks that we have not the power to interfere?

But we are reminded that there is a difference between power and right.

A great, broad, vital distinction there always is between power and right.

A nation or an individual may have a power without right.

Now is there not here a right as well as a power?

I cannot doubt that Congress may rightfully exercise what I cannot doubt is an existing power.

Is it not right for Congress to require that?

To my mind it is clear; it is absolutely within the province of Congress, in the exercise of the discretion which it originally retained over this whole subject.

I find nothing in it but a simple measure in harmony with this great process of Financial Reconstruction in which we are now engaged.

I call it Financial Reconstruction; and in this work ought not the banks to take their place and perform their part?

I may be voted down; perhaps I shall be; but I shall make a motion, in the honest endeavor to render this bill a practical measure, which can best succeed.

If you allow the banks gains that are too large, there will necessarily be a constant opposition, growing and developing as their gains become more conspicuous.

Let us now revise it carefully, place it on sure, but moderate foundations, so that it will have in itself the elements of future stability.

It was the cry, “Tax them out of existence! do not let them live! drive them from competition with these new children of ours, the national banks!” It was done.

It was a measure of policy wisely adopted at the time, and which we all now see has answered well.

But if we could tax the State banks out of existence, can we not, under the very specific terms of the Act of Congress to which these national banks owe their existence, apply a rule not unlike to them?

We do not propose to tax them out of existence, but we propose to require that they shall lodge with the Government securities at a lower rate of interest.

I am told that the profits of the national banks are two or three times greater than those of the old State banks, which we did not hesitate to tax out of existence.

If these national banks are the recipients of such large profits, should we not exercise all the power that belongs to us to compel them to their full contribution to this great measure of Financial Reconstruction?

That, Sir, is the Alpha of this whole subject; and until Congress is ready to begin with that, I fear that all the rest will be of little avail.

PRESIDENT,--How brief is life! how long is art!

But art lends its longevity only to lives extended by deeds.

His campaign at the South showed military genius of no common order.

Had he lived to take part in the National Government, his character and judgment must have secured for him an eminent post of service.

Unlike his two great associates, Washington and Hamilton, his life was confined to war; but the capacities he manifested in command gave assurance that he would have excelled in civil life.