Glenn Beck: Hey, what if a million people stopped paying their taxes in protest?

President Jackson’s 10 JUL 1832 Bank Veto Message.

A choice bit:

Every monopoly and all exclusive privileges are granted at the expense of the public, which ought to receive a fair equivalent. The many millions which this act proposes to bestow on the stockholders of the existing bank must come directly or indirectly out of the earnings of the American people. It is due to them, therefore, if their Government sell monopolies and exclusive privileges, that they should at least exact for them as much as they are worth in open market. The value of the monopoly in this case may be correctly ascertained. The twenty-eight millions of stock would probably be at an advance of 50 per cent, and command in market at least $42,000,000, subject to the payment of the present bonus. The present value of the monopoly, therefore, is $17,000,000, and this the act proposes to sell for three millions, payable in fifteen annual installments of $200,000 each.

It is not conceivable how the present stockholders can have any claim to the special favor of the Government. The present corporation has enjoyed its monopoly during the period stipulated in the original contract. If we must have such a corporation, why should not the Government sell out the whole stock and thus secure to the people the full market value of the privileges granted? Why should not Congress create and sell twenty-eight millions of stock, incorporating the purchasers with all the powers and privileges secured in this act and putting the premium upon the sales into the Treasury?

But this act does not permit competition in the purchase of this monopoly. It seems to be predicated on the erroneous idea that the present stockholders have a prescriptive right not only to the favor but to the bounty of Government. It appears that more than a fourth part of the stock is held by foreigners and the residue is held by a few hundred of our own citizens, chiefly of the richest class. For their benefit does this act exclude the whole American people from competition in the purchase of this monopoly and dispose of it for many millions less than it is worth. This seems the less excusable because some of our citizens not now stockholders petitioned that the door of competition might be opened, and offered to take a charter on terms much more favorable to the Government and country.

But this proposition, although made by men whose aggregate wealth is believed to be equal to all the private stock in the existing bank, has been set aside, and the bounty of our Government is proposed to be again bestowed on the few who have been fortunate enough to secure the stock and at this moment wield the power of the existing institution. I can not perceive the justice or policy of this course. If our Government must sell monopolies, it would seem to be its duty to take nothing less than their full value, and if gratuities must be made once in fifteen or twenty years let them not be bestowed on the subjects of a foreign government nor upon a designated and favored class of men in our own country. It is but justice and good policy, as far as the nature of the case will admit, to confine our favors to our own fellow-citizens, and let each in his turn enjoy an opportunity to profit by our bounty. In the bearings of the act before me upon these points I find ample reasons why it should not become a law.

It has been urged as an argument in favor of rechartering the present bank that the calling in its loans will produce great embarrassment and distress. The time allowed to close its concerns is ample, and if it has been well managed its pressure will be light, and heavy only in case its management has been bad. If, therefore, it shall produce distress, the fault will be its own, and it would furnish a reason against renewing a power which has been so obviously abused. But will there ever be a time when this reason will be less powerful? To acknowledge its force is to admit that the bank ought to be perpetual, and as a consequence the present stockholders and those inheriting their rights as successors be established a privileged order, clothed both with great political power and enjoying immense pecuniary advantages from their connection with the Government.

Why this selection rather than the more famous ones later in the speech?

First, Republicans need to be reminded that the concept of ‘privitization’ did not start in the 20th century but the 19th in the US. His suggestion to open the bank to be held by common stocks held by Americans so they could run their own affairs by choosing who is on the board and not have political appointees do it is a strong denunciation of the centralization of power to the federal government. He more strongly goes over that later in the Veto.

Second, the National Bank had to be re-authorized. When was the last time Fannie, Freddie or the Federal Reserve had to be re-authorized? The founders made it clear with how they viewed the armed forces that Congress needs to take positive action in keeping parts of government vital to the Nation open and operating, thus requiring re-authorization so that abusive insititutions could be shut down and removed. That happened with the National Bank, the equivalent of our Federal Reserve. We lived quite well for over 70 years without such an institution. Amazing as it may seem, Americans figured out how to run their own fiscal concerns without the oversight of the federal government from such an institution.

Third, the monopoly power of government needs close oversight, checks and to be divested as soon as possible when such monopolies prove to be against the Nation’s interest and are corrupted by political influence. That is one of the major problems with any National Bank, Federal Reserve or other guaranty system backed by the government by un-elected appointees. See Fannie and Freddie for that today.

Unlike most modern Vetos, he goes through the entire set of interests of the Nation for such an institution, not only economically, but politically and for the defense of the Nation. It is a wide-ranging document to examine the corruption of power and the venues that power can utilize institutions to corrupt ends. To that end he goes over SCOTUS decisions and examines them, and then compares them to the directives for the government in the Constitution. The ‘degree of necessity’ argument is pointedly taken in that context, and was a major factor in what institutions are necessary and to what degree, and what is justified in having and running them. That turns out to be a key point as Congress can also create a non-monopoly: competing banks and interests given into the hands of the people of the Nation to run under government charter. That has bureaucratic inefficiency, but by putting competing interests at work there are checks and balance via the marketplace which would ensure a moderating influence on the organizations involved.

No one can say that a man who actually removes a major part of the federal government (can you imagine any President since Woodrow Wilson actually putting a veto on the Federal Reserve?) which would be one of the largest, if not in terms of scale to the Nation, largest removal of federal power in US history, dwarfing later FDR organs that got shut down.

It really is a wide-ranging attack on the power of the US government to avoid taxes, avoid oversight and avoid accountability. We were well served without it through the worst war in US history, the US Civil War, and created a strong industrial Nation that would quickly move to the forefront of all Nations in the early 20th century… all WITHOUT a National Bank or other form of federal structure like the Federal Reserve.

The most cited passage is as follows:

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society-the farmers, mechanics, and laborers-who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.

Nor is our Government to be maintained or our Union preserved by invasions of the rights and powers of the several States. In thus attempting to make our General Government strong we make it weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and States as much as possible to themselves-in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence; not in its control, but in its protection; not in binding the States more closely to the center, but leaving each to move unobstructed in its proper orbit.

Experience should teach us wisdom. Most of the difficulties our Government now encounters and most of the dangers which impend over our Union have sprung from an abandonment of the legitimate objects of Government by our national legislation, and the adoption of such principles as are embodied in this act. Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires we have in the results of our legislation arrayed section against section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our Union. It is time to pause in our career to review our principles, and if possible revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of compromise which distinguished the sages of the Revolution and the fathers of our Union. If we can not at once, in justice to interests vested under improvident legislation, make our Government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political economy.

Not that we have seen attempts to make the rains from Heaven fall via Justice upon some and not others… heaven forbid! That is ‘fairness’ to do that, not being equal citizens before the law.

I still await the wisdom to hand out equal shares of all these ‘bailout’ companies to the Amemrican People so we can determine our own destiny without the ‘help’ of the federal government. We can do a damned sight better job of that than any bureaucrat, any politician, any judge. Because we are the source of the wisdom of the Nation, not those institutions.

ajacksonian on May 30, 2009 at 8:24 AM