ple, in which persons and property have hitherto found
security.

But supposing we had the authority, I would ask what good can result
from the examination? Can we declare the Bank unconstitutional, and
compel it to desist from the abuses of its power, provided we find such
abuses to exist? Can we repair the injuries which it may have done to
individuals? Most certainly we can do none of these things. Why
then shall we spend the public money in such employment? Oh, say the
examiners, we can injure the credit of the Bank, if nothing else, Please
tell me, gentlemen, who will suffer most by that? You cannot injure, to
any extent, the stockholders. They are men of wealth--of large capital;
and consequently, beyond the power of malice. But by injuring the credit
of the Bank, you will depreciate the value of its paper in the hands of
the honest and unsuspecting farmer and mechanic, and that is all you can
do. But suppose you could effect your whole purpose; suppose you could
wipe the Bank from existence, which is the grand ultimatum of the
project, what would be the consequence? why, Sir, we should spend
several thousand dollars of the public treasure in the operation,
annihilate the currency of the State, render valueless in the hands of
our people that reward of their former labors, and finally be once more
under the comfortable obligation of paying the Wiggins loan, principal
and interest.

OPPOSITION TO MOB-RULE

ADDRESS BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S LYCEUM OF SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.

January 27, 1837.

As a subject for the remarks of the evening, "The Perpetuation of our
Political Institutions" is selected.

In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American
people, find our account running under date of the nineteenth century of
the Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the
fairest portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility
of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the
government of a system of political institutions conducing more
essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty than any of which
the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of
existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental
blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them;
they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic,
but now lamented and departed, race of ancestors. Theirs