ments can act injuriously on any interest | is optional with every bank whether it will avail itself of the privileges secured by the proposed system; but it is evident that banks enough will be found ready to comply with the conditions upon which they acquire such marked advantages. There are not many of our banks who would prefer that the sub-treasury should drain their specie rather than their bills. of society. On the contrary, we may conclude that by thus strengthening the banks speculative feeling will be in some measure restrained, although no system can prevent men who have become infatuated in the chase of sudden wealth from sacrificing any other interest to the ruling passion of the moment. The plan proposed possesses an additional feature not to be overlooked. A variety of opinion exists in regard to loaning the public money to banks or individuals. Those who urge the propriety of such loans, found their opinion upon the fact that by that means specie will be prevented from becoming locked up, and made subservient to the purposes of trade. There is force in these arguments, and if the question lay simply between locking up the public moneys, and loaning them upon good security, they would carry the day. But on the other hand it is urged with much truth that such loans are apt to become a source of political influence, and to have a controlling influence upon the elections. Without attempting to weigh between the arguments stated, it is enough to say that a system which shall retain the specie of the country in its legitimate channels, without allowing of any considerable degree of favoritism, will be the choice of all who hold either of these opinions in moderation. We have already seen too much of the disadvantages of locking up the specie of the country, to want proof that its release will be hailed as a public blessing. We need not again allude to this branch of the subject. It is of some consequence to know what will be the effect of this system upon the banks. If they were to be largely the losers by measures adopted for the benefit of the public, it might be deemed inequitable to impose such burdens upon them. True, it will require capital in order to procure stock to be deposited; but that capital is well employed, drawing a remunerating interest, and the bank certainly ought not to complain if it is allowed privileges more than sufficient to compensate for the outlay necessary to bring it within the advantages offered by the system. It In bringing a system like the one proposed into working condition, there are more or less important questions to be solved. Some such as the following are suggested as worthy of grave consideraation, viz. : Should the total amount of deposits be limited, and the circulation founded on them correspondingly curtailed, or the whole left free to be settled by the laws of trade and competition? It may be safe to say, that in the adjustment of such inequalities as the imposition of limitations is intended to correct, the uniform law of trade usually works a sufficient cure. On these points there is abundant room for difference of opinion, though fortunately the decision of the question either way does not involve any very formidable results. A question may arise in respect to the operation of the system, in conjunction with the Free Banking System of NewYork. No serious difficulty could occur if banks already furnishing security under the State system, should be called upon to furnish additional securities, in order to come within the provisions of the U. S. system. It would certainly require an ample capital, but if they possess that capital, or can procure it, they lose nothing by the investment. But the free banking system might, without difficulty, give way to the more general application of its own principle. In that case, so far as the banks or individuals are concerned, it would be but a change of the deposit of securities from the hands of the Comptroller to those of the sub-treasurer. The Comptroller might be empowered, upon receiving a certificate of the deposit of stocks with the sub-treasurer, to issue bills in the same manner as if the deposit had been made with himself. HON. JACOB COLLAMER, OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. ALTHOUGH there is perhaps no country | where private wealth has so numerous and so valuable and important uses, there are few where its possession confers so little political or social influence, and certainly none where the accidental advantages of family and fortune are so powerless in compensating for the want of natural gifts, of diligent application, or of a virtuous life, as in the United States of America. Indeed there is no one circumstance more strongly or more favorably characteristic of our republican institutions, than the great frequency of the instances, in which persons who began life with no external advantages have been able, by the persevering exercise of uncommon moral faculties or intellectual powers, to raise themselves from the obscurest walks of life to stations of the highest honor, and the most commanding influence. And these cases have been so numerous, that they have come to be considered as but familiar exemplifications of a rule, paradoxical indeed, but almost inflexible, while the occasional success of one who starts from the seeming vantage-ground of hereditary wealth and powerful patronage, is regarded as a rare and even almost discreditable exception. Unhappily it is not true, that the elevation of our political men is always an homage to virtue, or an acknowledgment of the claims and the worth of exalted intellect, but it is unquestionably the opinion of intellectual power, which constitutes the most available title to popular favor. Contemporaneous public opinion is far from infallible, even in the most enlightened communities, and there is no more frequent error than that of mistaking action for power. There are persons, conspicuous enough in their day, whose supposed energy consists merely in a nervous inability to remain in repose, who busy themselves in outward action, barely because they are without internal resources, who Harangue the drowsy Senate loud and long, and Because, forsooth, they cannot hold their tongue. The bustling and uneasy vanity, which expends itself in frequent imbecile ebullitions, for a time eclipses the quiet and conscious power, which reserves itself for worthy occasions, to be then exerted in well considered efforts, whose effects are felt, and whose inherent worth is remembered, long after the crisis which called them forth is passed over. Among those who have, by their own efforts, raised themselves to opulence or distinction, there is a large class popularly known as "self-made men," an appellation designating not so much those who, in spite of external disadvantages, have acquired multifarious knowledge or high intellectual discipline, as those whom assiduous application and sedulous devotion to some humble end have enabled to dispense with the learning and the talent by which others rise, and who, having accomplished their own selfish purposes without such aid, think themselves justified in despising the knowledge and the training which are the fruits of a well-ordered education; and are generally more remarkable for contempt of authority, and the tenacity with which they adhere to their own crude notions, than for ability to defend them, or power to move out of the narrow range of thought or action, to which habit has familiarized them. But there is another side to the picture, and our country is fortunately able to boast numerous examples of a far more creditable character than those to which we have hitherto referred. We are with reason proud of the energy and the virtues which have raised from obscurity to eminence so many of our ablest jurists and statesmen; and we take pleasure in presenting to our readers a highly favorable specimen of that class of distinguished Americans, who have earned for themselves the honorable position which the sober judgment of their countrymen has awarded to them, in the following biographical notice of a gentleman, whose public acts have already acquired for him a wider and more enduring reputation than he could receive from any commendation of ours. We refer to the Hon. Jacob Collamer, of Vermont, who, after a service of six years in the Congress of the United States, is now, to the great regret of all, to whom his public services are known, about to withdraw from political life. which the bar of those counties was then distinguished. In the last named year (having in the mean time been often an active and influential member of the Legislature of Vermont) he was, without solicitation or expectation on his part, elected an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and was continued upon the bench, discharging his judicial duties with much credit, and to the general satisfaction of the profession, until the year 1842, when he declined a re-election. In 1843, he was elected to represent the second Congressional District of Vermont in the Congress of the United States, was reelected in 1844 and 1846, and in 1848, much to the regret of his constituents, upon whom the eminent ability of his parliamentary career had reflected so great credit, he declined to be again a candidate. The forensic life of a lawyer unhappily leaves few memorials, and there is, perhaps, no profession which demands the exercise of so great and so varied intellectual powers, and at the same time preserves and perpetuates so little of the mental effort it calls forth. The rarest dexterity in the conduct of a cause, the most masterly argumentation, the most persuasive eloquence, are often displayed before very obscure forums, and of these there remains no other record than a newspaper notice, or the reporter's meagre skeleton of the points taken by the counsel, and notes of the authorities cited, and which of course, like the subtle and ingenious pleadings in the case, are Greek to the The subject of this sketch had none of the early advantages which parents, mistakenly perhaps, are usually so solicitous to secure for their children, and owes nothing to adventitious circumstances of birth or fortune; though, if ancestral virtue is a just cause of pride, there are few who can boast a nobler escutcheon, for his propositus was one of the old Puritan stock, who preferred religious liberty in the wilderness to enforced conformity in a palace. Judge Collamer was born at Troy, NewYork, and is a son of Samuel Collamer, a native of Scituate, in Massachusetts, and a soldier of the Revolution. In his child-"lay gents," and neither interesting nor hood he removed with his father's family to Burlington, Vermont, and was graduated at the University there at an early age, in 1810. He immediately commenced the study of the law, made the frontier campaign of 1812 as a lieutenant of artillery in the detached militia in the service of the United States, and was admitted to the bar in 1813, having accomplished his course of preparatory, collegiate, and professional study, without any other pecuniary means than such as his own industry supplied him. From the time of his admission to the bar until the year 1833, he practised his profession in the counties of Orange and Windsor, with marked ability and success, under all the disadvantages of a competition with the eminent counsel by intelligible to any save those who are of the same mystery. We are therefore unable to characterize the professional life of Judge Collamer further than by saying that he was conscientiously laborious in the preparation of his cases, and as diligent in the more general and systematic study of the law, as is practicable for a gentleman engaged in the active duties of that engrossing profession. His success, however, is well attested by the extent of his practice, the satisfaction of his clients, and the general voice of the Vermont Bar. As a judicial officer, Judge Collamer was able, industrious and courteous, and discharged the duties of that laborious station, sitting both at nisi prius and in bank, to the general acceptance of the legal pro fession and of the public. Of this no better proof is needed than the fact already adverted to, that he was annually re-elected for nine successive years, without opposition or objection, and he might doubtless have remained upon the bench as much longer as it suited his inclination to serve. An inspection of the legal opinions delivered by him on solemn argument, as recorded in the Vermont Reports, will show that he has aimed to present the points adjudged in as lucid, orderly, and condensed a form as practicable, not embarrassing the resolutions of the court with hypothetical cases, or obiter dicta, but striving to rest on what my Lord Coke in his quaint Latin-English somewhere calls the ancient sincerity of the law, which is certainly in great and growing danger of being irrecoverably sophisticated by the torrents of diffuse and verbose legal learning with which our many American tribunals are deluging the land, to the confusion of the student, and the sore embarrassment of his exchequer. As specimens of Judge Collamer's judicial style, condensation and method, we refer to Wheeler vs. Wheeler, 11 Vermont Reports, 60, and Carpenter vs. Hollister et al., 13 V. R. 552; in both of which, he pronounced judgment, in opinions encumbered by no unnecessary parade of authority, but remarkable for clear, concise, and logical argument. As a nisi prius justice, Judge Collamer was successful in the rapid dispatch of the heavy dockets of his circuit by Confining the counsel to the true points at issue, and by the prompt decision of the law of the case, at the same time affording every facility for testing the soundness of his ruling, by exception. While on the bench he was elected a member of a convention called for the purpose of revising and amending the constitution of the State, and it is mainly to his efforts that Vermont is indebted for an amendment to the constitution providing for a Senate as a co-ordinate branch of the law-making power, a necessary check upon legislation, which before was wanting. The congressional life of Judge Collamer is so well known to the readers of this Review, that it is not necessary to particularize his parliamentary services in detail. | We may, however, enumerate his printed speeches, which are remarkable for great conciseness, clearness and simplicity of method, as well as for sound and lawyerlike logic. His first speech, on the right of members elected by certain States to the House of Representatives in the twenty-eighth Congress by general ticket, contrary to a law of the twenty-seventh Congress, was very well received, and had a marked influence on the course of the debate, and, as it is believed, on the subsequent action of some of those States, all of which now elect by districts, in compliance with the law of 1842. His next speech was on wool, woolens, and the policy of the tariff of 1842, and was very widely circulated and highly commended. He also spoke against the annexation of Texas, and against the Tariff bill of 1846, with much ability, but without effect; argument, however cogent, being powerless against the decrees of the Baltimore Convention. His remaining parliamentary efforts are a speech on the Mexican war, and another upon the message announcing the termination of that unhappy conflict. We dwell the less upon these performances, although they have great merit, because the discussions of which they formed a part, excited, from the nature of their subjects, a wide and general interest, and they have been so extensively read that further special notice of them is superfluous. It is in another field of much intrinsic importance, but the relations of which to the great interests of the Union are not well understood, that Judge Collamer's labors have been, perhaps, most valuable and hitherto most effective. We refer to the administration of our most splendid national patrimony-the public land. There has been no instance in the history of free nations, in which so vast a fund of material wealth has been committed to a people, and no government had ever before the pecuniary means of doing so much for the physical and moral improvement of the condition of its subjects, without impoverishing them by burdensome imposts or taxation. But this is not the place to dwell on the selfish and ungenerous schemes, through which certain sections of the Union are seeking to monopolize for themselves the entire advantages of this great source of national wealth, or the mistaken philanthropy, the financial folly, or the profligate demagoguism which would renounce this noble inheritance, and throw it open to occupancy by combinations of speculators or the hordes of half-civilized boors, whom so inviting a prospect would lure hither from the darkest and most depraved quarters of Europe. Suffice it to say, that as a member of the Committee on Public Lands in the twentyeighth and twenty-ninth Congresses, and as chairman of that committee in the thirtieth, Judge Collamer has steadfastly and successfully resisted all these projects, whether openly proposed as donations without consideration, or insidiously clothed in the disguise of graduation bills, though supported by all the official, and, to the shame of the present administration be it said, personal influence of the cabinet. The defeat of the graduation bill of 1846 is in a great measure to be ascribed to Judge Collamer's powerful and unanswerable arguments in a speech on the floor of the House, which was unfortunately never prepared for the press, and his report on that subject at the first session of the present Congress has done as much to disabuse public sentiment, and disseminate correct information in regard to the public lands, as any document that has ever emanated from the House of Representatives. Besides these more public labors, Judge Collamer has suggested various improvements in the conduct of this branch of the public service, which have received the high approbation of the department, and among which we may specify particularly the construction of maps of all the public lands, on a plan which not only shows the locality of every quarter section, but indicates at a glance, whether it has been opened to entry, is sold, or remains in market.* In regard to Judge Collamer's position. as a member of the House of Representatives, we may say with truth that it is even higher than public opinion has ascribed to tained by this Department, of the public services you have rendered, while presiding as Chairman over the Committee on Public Lands, in the House of Representatives of the United States. Among the highest and most important duties devolving upon a Representative of the people in the American Congress, is his co-operation by wise legislation, in the proper and judicious management of our wide-spread public domain, stretching as it now does from the Atlantic to the Pacific shores, ranging through climates of every temperature, and embracing an empire area of more than fourteen hundred and forty-two millions of acres. The machinery of our public land system is now operating upon the greater part of the politically organized portions of this extensive domain; but beautiful, and comparatively perfect and efficient as that land system is, it necessarily requires, and indeed it is a principle of the system itself, that it should be adapted, by the wisdom and skill of the enlightened legislator, to the new and increasing exigencies or events which are ever arising, as the peaceful armies of this mighty Republic are advancing westward towards the forests, lay the foundations of cities, and rear enshores of the Pacific, with axe in hand to fell the during monuments to the triumphs of Republican civilization. Coming, as you did, from an elder member of the Confederacy, you have not been brought into those intimate relations with the frontier States, which a residence among them would naturally produce. But, sir, permit me. in the name and behalf of the people of the new States, and of our Territory, to thank you for bringing, in the discharge of your various, complicated, and most arduous public duties, to the aid of a strong, well-improved, and comprehensive intellect, your sympathies upon those subjects which most concern them; for the lively interest which you have ever manifested in their welfare; and for the energy and efficiency with which, as a legislator, you have caused measures, the best calculated to protect and promote their interest, to assume the form and force of legal enactments. It is proper, also, to remark, that while you have been thus liberal to the new States, you have not been unmindful of your duty to the old. has been such, that almost everywhere, and in The rapidity of emigrations and settlements every direction, the march of the pioneer has been in advance of the public surveys. Looking to this fact, with the eye not only of a wise and considerate legislator, but also that of a true philanthropist, you have always manifested not only a willingness, but an anxious desire to protect their improvements, and to secure to them their homes, by a proper extension of the pre-emption system to the unsurveyed lands, as fast as the Indian title is extinguished, and at the same time to |