TWENTY-KINTH CONGRESS, 1845-1847. 391 



was called here a inuniticent donation of halt" a million from an Eng- 

 lishman to enlightened American republicans in this country. How 

 did it happen that this Government accepted such a boon from a for- 

 eigner — an Englishman, too? He looked upon it as a stain on the his- 

 tory of the country, as an insult to the American nation. He wished 

 this Government to wash its hands of all such eleemosynary dealings. 

 There was a native stock in this country, intellectual and physical, 

 that needed no foreign aid, and he trusted in God it would not conde- 

 scend to receive any. 



In making these remarks he would probably be charged with being 

 opposed to education. He was opposed to it in the light in which in 

 modern times it was sought to be inculcated in this country — an edu- 

 cation which passed over all thought, all reflection, all originality, and 

 was based upon an intellectual lumber house of undigested and indi- 

 gestible matter, thrown together in the head of some aspirant after 

 immortal intellectual fame, without originality enough to give char- 

 acter, he would not say to what^ — he had a term, but probably it might 

 be inappropriate for him to utter it here. How the donor of this 

 mone}', being an Englishman, came to love this country so well, God 

 only knew; but he (Mr. Chipman) would say that in yielding to his 

 suggestion the country had humbled and degraded itself. 



He objected to the bill because, clearly and in terms, it established 

 a corporation. He appealed to his political friends, after all their 

 opposition, after all their arguments, after all their efforts to put down 

 a United States bank on the ground of its unconstitutionality, whether — 

 tickled, amused, their pride touched b}^ the great advantages of dis- 

 pelling the cloud of ignorance which overshadowed the American 

 Republic — they would now belie all their principles and all their pro- 

 fessions? What distinction was there between a corporation in the 

 form of a United States bank and a corporation intended to elevate 

 humanit}^ in close approximation to the throne of Heaven? He 

 appealed to his friends here — to those who held their seats by virtue of 

 the very opposition they had made to the bank of the United States — 

 whether this Government had the power to create a corporation ? The 

 rose by any other name, etc. , and a corporation by any other name 

 should be as offensive to the Democracy. Was it necessary to label 

 the animal that we might know to what species it belonged, as was 

 done in the case of the Dutchman's picture of a man with the horse, 

 where the name was put upon it that the beholder might know what it 

 was ? He declared that the bill proposed the establishment of one of 

 the most withering and deadly corporations, carr34ng with it all the 

 features of an aristocracy the most offensive that could be established 

 in any country under heaven. He was opposed to an aristocracy of 

 wealth, but he was in favor of an aristocracy of intellect — not of false^ 

 education — not of knowledge that consisted in bringing together 



