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Class L 1> S b 
 
 Book 
 
 |A3 
 
THE 
 
 SECOND WAR OF REVOLUTION. 
 
 BY A TIRGINIAW. 
 
 ^ - */vU^ 
 
THE 
 
 SECOND WAR OF REVOLUTION; 
 
 THE GREAT PRiy^IPLLS INVOLVED IN THE PRESENT 
 CONTROVERSY BETWEEN PARTIES. 
 
 We are in the midst of a Revolution bloodless as yet. — Mr. Clay. 
 No Sabbatha are recojnized in a Revolution. — ifr. Webster. 
 "Watchman, what of the night ?" 
 
 BY A VIRGIMAX, 
 
 •REPRINTED FROM THE DEMOCRATIC REVIEW PC'R MAY. 1S39. 
 
 c^WASHINGTO^": 
 
 AT THX OFFICE OF THE rEilOCKATIC REVIEW. 
 
 1839. 
 

THE 
 
 SECOND WAR OF REVOLUTION. 
 
 ■' When the people of the United States resolved to put an end to the corporation 
 which, rising upon the ruins of tlie old continental currency, amidst the wants and dis- 
 tresses of the revolution, early displayed its native instinctive hostility to justice, 
 equality, and the liberties of the people; and which, after a few years of into-regmim 
 and anarchy — while the people, burthened with the debts they had incurred as the 
 price of their liberty, were torn by rival factions, and distracted by the petty jeal- 
 ousies of thirteen sovereign States — was ingrafted into their new government before 
 they had learnt its strength and resources, distinctly marked its limitations, or tested 
 its capacity for good or evil; and which again, after a few years' suspension of its 
 existence, reviving, like a phosnix, from the ashes of national calamity, clothed with 
 renewed strength, and endowed with mightier privileges, was forced upon their 
 necks, under the pretence of expediency and necessity, in the midst of war and na- 
 tional calamity. When they resolved to destroy an institution so created in violation 
 of the Constitution, and after long experience and repeated trials of its dangerous ten- 
 dencies, it was not the mere paper charter — the parchment roll filed away among the 
 records of legislation — which they wished to have annihilated; nor was it the types 
 and machinery by which paper is manufactured into money which were th'^ objects 
 of their hostility; none of these things could call forth those deep feelings of opposi- 
 tion and repugnance which the people have manifested for more than half a century, 
 and which, growing stronger and stronger by every day's experience, have at length 
 become fixed in a solemn resolution to risk every consideration in the unflinching 
 resolution to confine all money corporations to their legitimate sphere of promoting 
 commercial utility alone.* 
 
 ♦ Minutes of the Assembly, March 21, 1785. Petitions from a considerable number of the 
 inhabitants of Chester county were read, representing that the bank at Philadelphia liad 
 fatal effects upon the community : that whilst men are enabled, by means of the bank, to 
 receive near three times the rate of common interest, and at the same time receive their 
 money at very short warning, whenever they have occasion for it, it will be impossible for the 
 husbandman or mechanic to borrow on the former terms of legal interest and distant payments 
 of the principal ; that the best security will not enable the person to borrow ; that e.xperience 
 clearly demonstrates the mischievous consequences of this institution to the fair trader ; that 
 impostors have been enabled to support themselves in a fictitious credit, by means of a tem- 
 porary punctuality at the bank, until they have drawn in their honest neighbors to trust them 
 ■with their property, or to pledge their credit as sureties, and have been finally involved in 
 ruin and distress ; that they liave repeatedly seen the stopping of discounts at the bank ope- 
 rate on the trading part of the community with a degree of violence scarcely inferior to that 
 of a stagnation of blood in the human body, hurrying the wretched merchant who hath debts 
 to pay into the hands of griping usurers ; that the directors of the bank may give such prefer- 
 ence in trade, by advances of money to their particular parties, as to destroy that equality 
 ■which ought to prevail in a commercial country; that paper money has often proved benefi- 
 cial to the State, but the bank forbids it, and the people must acquiesce ; therefore, and in 
 order to restore public confidence and private security, they pray that a bill may be brought 
 in and passed into a law, for repealing the law for incorporating the bank. 
 
 March 28. The report of the committee, read March 25ih, on the petitions from the 
 counties of Chester and Berks, and the city of Philadelphia and its vicinity, praying the 
 act of the Assembly whereby the bank was established at Philadelphia may be repealed, 
 ■was read the second time, as follows, viz : 
 
To suppose that a reflectino;, self-governing people can be influenced by personal 
 hostilities or partialities in such a contest— to imagine that the sympathies of a mighty 
 nation can be roused and put forth by any visible, outward object, seen and known 
 by one only in ten thousand, is utterly to mistake the true character of mankind, and 
 the secret sources of popular omnipotence. It is only as a sign, a symbol of some 
 invisible power, that any external object can exert a controlling influence over the 
 public mind. AViio regards with more than idle curiosity the painted bunting 
 hung out to allure tlie multitude to some race-field or juggler's show 1 But convert the 
 idle streamer into the banner of a nation— symbolling and presenting mysteriously, 
 as it were, to the bodily eye, tlie sanctity of law, the blessings of peace, the consolations 
 of religion, and the endearments of home— and it at once exerts a thrilling power over 
 the heart of every human being who owns a country. When all Paris rolled forth like 
 a flood, and wave after wave beat against the sides of the Bastile until it fell, can any 
 one be so ignorant of the secret springs of human action as to imagine that it was 
 the granite walls, or the few miserable wretches immured within their dungeons, 
 that shot such maniac fury through the heart of a phrenzied multitude, and endowed 
 them with, the instinct, tlie guidance, and the resistless force, of an omnipotent being. 
 It was a consciousness deeper than thought, that there, in those dark, antique turrets, 
 
 The committee to whom was referred the petitions concerning the bank established in 
 Philadelphia, and who were instructed to inquire whether the said bank be compatible with 
 the public safety and that equality which ought ever to prevail between the individuals of a 
 republic, b°g leave to report : 
 
 That it is the opinion of this committee that the said bank, as at present established, is 
 incompatible with the public safety; that, in the present state of our tiade, the said bank has 
 a direct tendency to banish a great part of the specie from the country, so as to produce a 
 scarcity of money, and to collect into the hands of the stockholders of the said bank almost 
 the whole of the mi aey which remains among us; that the accumulations of enormous wealth 
 iu the hands of a society who claim perpetual duration will, necessarily, produce a degree of 
 influence and power which cannot be entrusted in the hands of any set of men whatsoever, 
 without endangering the public safety ; that the said bank, in its corporate capacity, is em- 
 powered to hold estates to the amount often millions of dollars, and, by the tenor of the pre- 
 sent charter, is to exist for ever, without being obliged to yield any emolument to the Go- 
 vernment, or to be at all dependent upon it; that the great profits of the bank which will 
 daily increase as money grows scarce, and which already far exceed the profits of European 
 banks, have tempted foreigners to vest their money in this bank, and thus to draw from us 
 large sums for interest. 
 
 That foreigners will doubtless be more and more induced to become stockholders, until 
 the time may amve when this enormous engine of power may become subject to foreign 
 influence ; this country may be agitated with the politics of European courts, and the good 
 people of America be reduced once more into a state of subordination and dependence upon 
 some one or other of the European powers. That, at best, if it were even confined to the 
 hands of Americans, it would be totally destructive of that equality which ought to prevail in 
 a republic. We have nothing in our free and equal Government capable of balancing the 
 influence which this bank must create, and we see nothing which, in the course of a few 
 years, can prevent the directors of the bank from governing Pennsylvania. Already we have 
 felt Its influence indirectly interfering in the measures of Legislature. Already the House 
 of Assembly, the representatives of the people, have been threatened that the credit of our 
 peper currency will be blasted by the bank ; and if this growing evil continues, we fear the 
 time is not very distant when the bank will be able to dictate to the Legislature what laws 
 to pass and what to forbear. 
 
 Your committee, therefore, beg leave further to report the following resolution to be 
 adopted by the hou;;e, viz : 
 
 Resolved, That a committee be appointed to bring in a bill to repeal the act of Assembly 
 passed the first day of April, 1782, entitled "An act to incorporate the subscribers to the 
 Bank of North America," and also to repeal one other act of Assembly passed the 18th of 
 March, 1782, entitled "An act for preventing and punishing the counterfeiting of the com- 
 mon seal, bank bills, and bank notes of the president, directors, and company of the Bank 
 of North America, and for other purposes therein mentioned." 
 
were embodied the tyranny, oppression, and despotism wliieh, growing up age 
 after age, and piling tower upon tower, was then frowning in wrath from Its lofty 
 battlements, upon an enslaved, down-trodden people, and scowling defiance in their 
 pallid, hunger-bitten faces, every hour of their toilsome and degraded txistcnce. 
 
 It was this consciousness, deep-stirring in their bosoms, that set the long-sleeping 
 masses in motion, and sent them welling and billowing against that which was a 
 more complete emblem of tyranny than the poor imbecile Louis, who bore the 
 name of Majesty. In like manner, it was not the parchment of privileges, the impene- 
 trable walls of a marble palace, or the old De Launay, royal superintendent, and his 
 Swiss guards who dwelt therein, that roused the indignation of the people against 
 our American bastile. It was a mightier cause of action — a secret, all-pervading, 
 overshadowing influence, corrupting their agents and sapping their liberties ; of 
 which sweeping, overwhelming power that institution was the sign, the symbol, the 
 thinking-head and controlling will. 
 
 The Constitution, after a perilous time of disorder and national prostration, was 
 adopted by tlie people of the States for their common defence and general v;oli'are; 
 and the Government organized under it had been in operation now some forty years, 
 but was perverted in the beginning from its legitimate purposes. That class of men 
 who would live by their wits on the labor of others ; who would be clothed with 
 purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day at the expense of the toil and 
 sweat of the poor man's brow ; who practise the principles of Cataline. alieni o/vidus 
 sui profusiLS — the system of Diddler in the farce, "living any way and well, at any 
 body's expense;" who hung like a dark cloud of croaking, ill-boding ravens on the 
 skirts of our suffering, bleeding armies, defrauding the soldiers, succoring the enemy, 
 and in the hour of triumph, soulless wretches as they were, crying beef! beef! while 
 a patriot camp was wringing with the shouts of victory and independence; ever 
 clamorous for office, scrambling for the merest crumbs of patronage; that class of 
 men, the perennial growth of every clime and every age, seized on the Government 
 in the beginning of its operations, and endeavored to convert it into a machine for 
 funding, banking, and speculating, not only in the national domain, in Indian wars. 
 treaties, annuities, and Indian lands; but such was their cormorant appetite, that not 
 even the claims of the poor invalid and pensioner, the claims of the toil-worn soldier, 
 which he asked in exchange for his youth, health, fortune, and blood, spent in de- 
 fence of his country, could escape their rapacious hands. While robbing the 
 poor, and plundering the nation, ever fruitful in expedients, skilful in devices, grow- 
 ing bold with success, and audacious in impunity, they at length assumed omnipotent 
 powers for a government which the people had ordained for limited and specified 
 purposes, and commenced a system of unequal and unjust taxation, beneficial to 
 themselves, but burthensome to the people — a system of taxation, not for revenue, not 
 for the legitimate wants of a Government economically administered, but avowedly 
 for the purpose of fostering and protecting the interests of a few sections and cl isses 
 of men at the expense of the entire nation. The vast funds, thus accunmlated be- 
 yond the just wants of Government, were wielded as a kind of magic wand, to sway 
 and influence the opinions of the people, corrupt their principles, change their love of 
 liberty into a thirst for gain, and to bribe them into submission and a right loyal 
 allegiance, by appealing to their hopes, and exciting the expectation that they would 
 obtain a portion of those rich spoils, the fruits of their prostitution and abandonment 
 of principle; but which were at length, by selfish and fraudulent combinations, 
 expended on some road, or canal, or river, or creek, or harbour, not for the common 
 defence and general welfare, but for the immediate and only benefit of those concerned 
 in the specuLalion. This stupendous system of partial legislation, of fraud and pec- 
 ulation, was checked by the Executive veto on the bill providing for the Maysville 
 road; but it still survives, and, Proteus-like, lives in a thousand shapes, costing the 
 nation, to this day, an annual expenditure of some ten ortwelve millions. In tracing 
 the history of our national legislation, it will be observed that the limitations of the 
 Constitution, and the common good of the whole Union, have been rarely considered 
 
in the adoption of any measure. And with few exceptions, the same observation ia 
 true in regard to the Legislatures of the States. To go no further back than seven 
 years, the date of the veto on the bank bill, what has been their employment since 
 that period 1 Look at their statute books ; they are crowded with enactments to alter, 
 amend, enlarge, and create bank charters, banking companies, monopolies, and cor- 
 porations, for every conceivable purpose within the scope of human enterprise, and 
 even of human imagination. To foster these schemes, to furnish ei pabulum for these 
 banks, canals, turnpikes, and railroads to feed upon, the credit of the Slates have 
 been brought into requisition, and the people, in a new form, saddled with a national 
 debt of more than ojie hundred and seventy millions. The banks, thus sustained on 
 the credit of the people, live only by making a lottery of their fortunes, and plun- 
 dering them of their property. The thousand petty schemes of internal improvement, 
 forced into being by a prodigal expenditure of the public resources, are, with rare 
 exceptions, local and sectional in their character; giving no stimulus to agriculture or 
 enterprise ; gotten up for the benefit of corporations and individuals, many of them 
 altogether useless, and aU put together, are not able to pay the interest on the money 
 expended in their execution. 
 
 While the Legislatures of the States have never lifted themselves up to a com- 
 prehensive view of the wants and interests of the whole ; never ventured to hazard 
 on some noble enterprise for education and commerce, the little modicum of popularity 
 by which they held their places, ever scrambling for a distribution of the crumbs; 
 intriguing and mousing over their petty, selfish schemes of individual advantage ; 
 while thus wasting the resources of the State, and poorly consulting the common 
 weal, all power has been gradually sliding from their hands, and falling into the 
 possession of those corporate institutions which they, from year to year, had created. 
 Where are our men of talents, of wealth, of experience in aifairs — men of influence, 
 ambitious of power and distinction 1 Look at your railroad companies, canal com- 
 panies, turnpike companies, and banking institutions; there you will find them, pre- 
 sidents, cashiers, treasurers, or directors ; men who have been eminent in thecouncila 
 of the nation, members of Congress, of the Executive cabinet, and senators, are retir- 
 ing from those exalted stations, and seeking with avidity the offices in the gift of 
 corporate institutions. And wherefore 1 " Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the 
 eagles be gathered together." Ambitious men seek those stations, because they well 
 know that in them is concentrated the true, substantial power and patronage of the 
 country; that in them is lodged the power behind the throne, greater than the throne 
 itself; that they are the steam engines that put all the wheels of Government in motion, 
 and draw along after them the entire train of legislation. Nine hundred banks — the 
 number is scarcely less — with as many thousand officers, three or four hundred thou- 
 sand stockholders, near seven hundred thousand debtors, wielding a capital of four hun- 
 dred millions, a discount loan of five hundred millions ; possessing the sovereign pre- 
 rogative of elevating or debasing at pleasure the currency of the country ; controlling 
 a State funded debt of one hundred and seventy millions, and the stocks, funds, and 
 debts of an innumerable host of joint-stock companies, which, together with the 
 banks, constitute an organized, consolidated, well-disciplined Macedonian piialanx, 
 thoroughly imbued with aristocratic ideas of the nobility of money and the degrada- 
 tion of labor ; holding that wealth is a virtue, and poverty a crime, monopolizing all 
 the lands, capital, trade, and commerce of the country; marcliing boldly forward 
 under the direction of influential, wealthy, talented, and ambitious men ; openly aspi- 
 ring to legislative and governmental control ; crowding our national Assembly and 
 State Legislatures with hired and unprincipled orators; corrupting the people in 
 their primary assemblies at the polls and the ballot-box, and recklessly pressing for- 
 ward to the ultimate overthrow of equal representation, and tiie establishment of 
 what they designates mild aristocracy — the open and avowed enemy of Democratic 
 principles. And well have they succeeded in the accomplishment of their purposes. 
 The constitutional form of legislation is an idle mockery ; the people may go through 
 the solemn ceremony of electing men to represent them in Congress and the Legisla- 
 
tures, but so soon as men arrive on the theatre of action, they universally imbibe the 
 opinions, and fall into the current of feeling most fashionable around them. They 
 soon learn to think that the interests of the banks and of the people are the same : 
 " touch the banks, you touch the people ;" they are not long in discovering that 
 the directors and financiers of moneyed corporations are wiser than they are, or 
 their constituents, and that whatever schemes they may desire or recommend must 
 be implicitly adopted. Not to speak of the direct influence brought to bear on their 
 hopes and fears — their expectations of some future good or evil resulting from the tre- 
 mendous moneyed power of the banks — their personal feelings of pride and vanity 
 are appealed to; and really honest, unsuspecting men, yielding to the attentions and 
 blandishments of those who know so well how to use them, and anxiously seeking 
 to gain the smiles and approbation of those whom they have the weakness to sup- 
 pose would reflect honor on their acquaintance, soon find themselves the followers 
 and liege subjects of associated wealth. Should these appliances fail, wliich seldom 
 happens, the more potent weapons of ridicule and denunciation are resorted to ; the 
 keen sarcasm, and cutting wit of the pensioned orators, and hireling presses, seldom 
 fail to drive all but the stern uncompromising friends of liberty into silence or neu- 
 trality; so that when any question of vital importance comes up, in which the in- 
 terests of associated wealth and the interests of the people are at issue, the latter have 
 never failed to be found in a hopeless minority. 
 
 Events had been steadily and surely advancing to this crisis for more than forty 
 years. Forgetting that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; imagining that their 
 forefathers had accomplished every thing in ordaining a Constitution of specified 
 powers, and vainly dreaming that all power was vested in themselves; the people at 
 length woke up to a sense of their true condition, and found that their creatures had 
 become omnipotent — that the reins of government had glided from their own hands, 
 and fallen into the possession of an exclusive privileged order ; who, without regard 
 to the limitations of the Constitution, or a pretence to the common defence and gen- 
 eral welfare, were creating monopolies, immunities and privileges for themselves, 
 engines of oppression, burthensome taxes, and enormous national debts for the 
 people. 
 
 They resolved to strike once more for independence. With an unerring instinct and 
 sagacity peculiar to an incensed and outraged people; they struck at the centre of 
 this unholy combination — the sun of the system around which all the lesser lumi- 
 naries revolved, and from which they drew their light and heat, and the principles of 
 vitality ; they struck their first blow at the Bank of the United States, the main 
 pillar of strength to the allied forces; their high tower of defence into which they 
 retreated in the hour of distress for council and succor, and whence went forth the 
 signal for the rally or the onset ; they first resolved on the destruction of that ' Mother 
 of Jacobins,' who could call to her aid a thousand afliliated and kindred institutions, 
 living on the pabulum she fijrnished; owing their existence to her will and forbear- 
 ance ; thinking, feeling, and acting as she thought, felt, and acted ; smiling when she 
 smiled, frowning when she frowned; they resolved to crush this vast corporation. 
 In a word, they resolved to level and raze to the earth that which was the sign and 
 symbol of an unseen, overwhelming power which had perverted their Constitution, 
 corrupted their agents, and destroyed their liberties — the bastile of Republican 
 American usurpation, oppression and tyranny. When the decree went forth, pro- 
 nounced by the Hero of the Iron Nerve, that tlic Bank of the United States, after the 
 expiration of its present charter, should not be renewed ; when that decree was 
 sanctioned and sustained by a virtuous and patriotic people, resolved to restore their 
 wounded and down-trodden Constitution, then commenced the Second War of the Rev- 
 olution. The second war of revolution, only bloodless as yet, because the largesses, open 
 bribery, violence, and excesses, practised in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- 
 vania, could not provoke an honest, self-possessed, and resolute people into similar 
 practices, riots, and excesses — and because a sufficient number of hired myrmidons 
 
could not be procured to fire on their countrymen, and protect, and cover up and ccn> 
 ceal the fraud, corruption and profligacy which had been practised at Harrlsburg. 
 
 Seven long years have we been involved in this war of revolution, and have not 
 yet approached the beginning of the end. 
 
 Seven years have nearly elapsed ; during that long period nvany have fallen in 
 the conflict — many passed from the scene of action; many leaders and whole masses 
 of men have changed their position, altered their relations to each other — the old land- 
 marks have been obliterated — darkness has come over the path of the people — the 
 dear objects of their pursuit seem to have eluded them at every step, and they are> 
 apparently, no nearer their attainment than when they first began. Confused and 
 dispirited, they have been meeting in their primary assemblies, and in conventions, 
 to consult and advise together — to determine, if they can, how far they have ad- 
 vanced in this warfare for independence; when they may hope to reach the end; who 
 are their f^\ithful friends, trust-worthy guiders, good men and true, in whom they 
 might safely confide their destinies 1 They have been crying to the wardens on the 
 wall — watchman, what of the night ! — and to the pilot and the helmsman, look out 
 upon the stars, take the aspect of the heavens, and tell us whither we are drifting, 
 where are the shoals and the breakers, and from what quarter is the storm approach- 
 ing. At this critical and trying moment, it is our purpose to perform the part of 
 faithful sentinels. Placed as a watchman upon the walls, we shall blow the trumpet 
 and warn the people. We shall tell them, as it becometh us, in all plainness and 
 sincerity, the errors of their past course — the dangers which now beset them, and the 
 means of escape ; so that, if they heed not the warning, and perish by the sword, their 
 blood will not be required at the watchman's hand. 
 
 When the revenues of the people were taken from the Bank of the United States^ 
 where they were used for battering down the constitution and the laws, were placed 
 in other depositories, and the whole subject thus brought within reach of legislation, 
 then was the time for the Representatives of the people, in Congress assembled, 
 to have matured some plan for the future collection, safekeeping, and disbursement 
 of the same — some permanent, well-digested plan, which should regard the welfare 
 of the community, and not the interests of a few classes of men — which should 
 separate the Government from all extraP-«ous influence, and place it on the broad 
 principles of equality and justice embodied in the constitution, and which would 
 esteem the moral and political integrity, and the liberties of the people, of infinitly more 
 value than the vain attempt to regulate exchanges and currency bygovermental ma- 
 chinery. Few, however, at that time seemed to comprehend the true question before 
 the country. Many honest, sincere friends of the people, circumscribed in their vision, 
 really imagined it was only a crusade against the Bank of the United States ; and 
 that when the overthrow of that institution was accomplished,, the controversy 
 would be at an end, not dreaming it was a death straggle for power and supremacy, 
 an effort on the part of the people to regain their lost independence, to restore to its 
 natural and constitutional owners that power which an unjust, partial, and unwise 
 legislation had thi-own into the hands of corporations, monopolies and speculators, 
 into the hands of amonied aristocracy, a republican oligarchy to which the Bank of 
 the United States was the nucleus of attraction, the thinking-head and controlling will. 
 The true friends of reform, while ignorant of the character and extent of the evil to 
 be remedied, were laboring under a fatal delusion which prevented them from adopt- 
 ing those wise measures demanded by the crisis of the times. Taught only in the 
 school of bank financiers, they were led to believe that the interests of commerce 
 and trade wovild be greatly promoted by permitting the public revenue to be used by 
 banks, as a fund to operate on in the same manner as though it were their own cap- 
 ital. Such had been the practice of the United States Bank, and all the local banks, 
 and such were the doctrines so zealously inculcated by their friends, tliat use and 
 custom, and the uncontradicted dogmas of bank emissaries, had at length impressed 
 the minds of honest men with the idea, that there was a sort of propriety, if not 
 
necessity, in a connection of Bank and State in some form — not knowing that credit, 
 which they were so anxious to promote and protect, when based on sound capital 
 and the actual products of the country, possesses an elasticity and expansibility 
 capable of meeting any increased operations of business, and adequate to every 
 sudden emergency in commercial vicissitudes, they yielded to the clamor of bank 
 friends, and thereby sacrificed the only measure of reform by which the people 
 were to be benefitted. 
 
 The local banks, on the other hand, and their numerous friends, never co operated 
 in the destruction of the United States Bank, with an honest intention of promoting 
 the great constitutional reform on which the people had entered. They looked only 
 to the political advantages accruing to themselves, and to the spoils of victory. They 
 had been restricted in their operations, checked and thwarted in all their plans, and 
 kept in a state of vassalage by the overshadowing influence of that national insti- 
 tution. They clearly foresaw that if the Bank of the United States were once re- 
 moved, they would, by an easy and natural combination, control the entire legisla- 
 tion of the country ; and realise vast sums of money by an unlimited trade on the 
 commerce, public lands, and credit of the Union. Possessing all power in their 
 respective States, they could not brook opposition, and easily grasped at the proffered 
 means of casting off" restraint, and expanding their own fortunes. Hence their 
 hostility and zealous co-operation against the Bank of the United States. Their 
 motives cannot be mistaken. Never intending to surrender any of their dominion 
 and power over the fortunes and liberties of the peojjle, they only desired to clip the 
 aspiring wing of one v/ho soared above the rest. It was a sort of Runnymede 
 agreement among the rag barons, that no one of the fraternity should be monarch 
 over the others — a quarrel of the robbers against their brigand chief for assuming 
 more authority than is justly due to him — a quarrel which would soon be healed 
 when the band itself is endangered, or new spoils ai-c to be obtained. When there- 
 fore we consider the friends of the United States Bank, who well nigh constituted 
 a majority of the whole Congress, the friends of the State banks who entered into 
 the crusade merely for their own private gains, and the friends of reform who were 
 laboring under a delusion, it will not be surprising that so few comprehended the true 
 crisis of affairs; and that no sound measures were proposed or adopted. What 
 more could be expected of a body composed of such materials, than panic speeches, 
 agitation, and a vile sci-amble among the rival interests for a portion of the spoils. 
 
 The wise plan of ultimately producing the reformation desired by the people — of 
 finally separating the Government from the banks, by causing them to withdraw their 
 small notes, reduce their circulation, and fill up the channels of trade with gold and 
 silver, so that the divorce might take place without any injury to themselves, or any 
 shock to the business of the country, was talked of, highly praised, held up to public 
 view as the most salutary and important reform ever proposed, but it was never di- 
 gested into any definite form, or introduced for legislation. It was promised by a 
 distinguished senator from Virginia; he pledged himself to its performance, and the 
 hopes of the country for a time hung on his movements. But he never redeemed his 
 promise. And whether he was deterred by a modest diffidence of his own powers, 
 or a dread of the overwhelming majority then arrayed against him, or whether he 
 himself was drawn in, and engulphed by the mighty maelstrom of bank influence 
 which swept every thing along in its dashing and whirling eddies, is no longer a 
 doubtful question. 
 
 For two years and a half nothing was done. From December 1833, to June 1836, 
 the banks were under no legislative restraint whatsoever, and were left to run wild in 
 their excesses. That portion of the monied oligarchy, who for their own purpose 
 desired an overthrow of the United States Bank, having gained their end, went to 
 work in their respective States to multiply their local institutions, and increase their 
 facilities for stockjobbing, borrowing, speculating in petty schemes of internal im- 
 provement, and plundering the people. The friends of the United States Bank 
 differing from them in no one principle whatsoever, having lost their favorite insti- 
 
10 
 
 tution, and feeling a common interest in preserving all power in the hands of the 
 oligarchy, naturally co-operated with them in all their schemes, and gave them a de- 
 cided majority in almost every legislature in the Union. By their joint operation 
 the number of banks was more than doubled in the space of time we are now speak- 
 ing of, and nearly nine hundred manufactories of paper money were set in motion, 
 pouring forth their rags, really as worthless as when first cast off by the beggars in 
 the street ; but endowed with the magic name of moncij, they came forth " thick as 
 autumnal leaves in Valombrosa," a perfect shower, not genial like the vernal rains, 
 but blasting and ruinous, potent only for evil. It was impossible to have employed 
 profitably in the legitimate business of the country, real gold and silver, equal in 
 nominal value to those spurious issues of paper money. Trade and commerce are 
 regulated by uniform and invariable laws. They require a circulating medium, 
 bearing only a small ratio to the actual productions of the country ; and if, by any 
 unforeseen cause, those productions should increase beyond the currency necessary 
 to exchange them, they would furnish a basis whereon to rear a credit sufficient to 
 meet the increased demand for money. A healthy action of domestic trade, and 
 a wise increase of foreign commerce, therefore, had no part in producing that flood 
 of paper issues by which the land was deluged. The monied oligarchy would not 
 have been laboring in tiieir vocation had they consulted the common weal — the per- 
 manent solid good of all the people in the measures they adopted. Their object was 
 to get the public lands in exchange for their paper — to stimulate speculation — drive 
 commerce beyond its wants and its means — to intoxicate the people with the idea of 
 boundless prosperity — to make them reckless and extravagant, so that their property, 
 in the end, their improvements, and their liberties, also, might fall a prey into the 
 hands of those who had wickedly drawn them into tiie snare. Almost the entire 
 public domain, amounting to townships, dukedoms, and principalities, fell into their 
 hands — foreign trade was involved in a debt of iMrty millions beyond its resources, 
 and as a legitimate consequence, an enormous surplus revenue was accumulated far 
 beyond the most extravagant demands of Government. Hence there arose another 
 difficulty. What shall be done with the surplus 1 We have not only to regulate 
 by law the connection between Bank and State, but we have to dispose of the over- 
 flowing revenues naturally resulting from that alliance. 
 
 Both of these difficulties were solved, to the satisfaction of the monied oligarchy, 
 by the act of the 23rd June, 1836. That law was the work of their own hands, and 
 devised for their own benefit. By it, a perpetual union of Bank and State was 
 solemnized ; an indiscriminate reception of their paper issues was authorized ; a 
 more equal distribution of the benefits arising from the use of the public funds was 
 made among the entire fraternity of paper coiners ; and a precedent was established 
 by which the annual surplus should be distributed among the States, there to be used 
 a second time for their benefit. No schemes could, apparently, be more happily 
 devised to promote the ends of the monied oligarchy — the embezzlement of the 
 fortunes and the subversion of the liberties of the people. But, by a kind Provi- 
 dence, who has ever watched over the destinies of our Republic, their chosen instru- 
 ment was made the means of producing their own overthrow — of catching them in 
 their own snare — entrapping them in their own craftiness. The act of 183G, instead 
 of advancing the welfare of the banks, was the chief cause of the disasters which 
 subsequently befel them. But before we proceed to a consideration of that branch 
 of the subject, let us dwell for a moment on the extraordinary precedent of distri- 
 buting the surplus revenue among the States, under pretence of a deposite for safe 
 keeping. 
 
 That measure, more than any thing else, displays the true character and design 
 of those who, from the beginning, have controlled the op rations of our Govern- 
 ment. A proposition for distributing the proceeds of the public lands, and also the 
 surplus revenue among the States, had repeatedly failed. Few were prepared 
 openly to avow a principle, whose tendency was to destroy the independence of the 
 States bind them as pensioned provinces to a central government of unlimited 
 
11 
 
 powers, and to blot out every featureof popular supremacy traced in the Constitution. 
 But when the same principle was introduced in a covert and insidious way, it was 
 immediately adopted by an overwhelming majority ; and that which men would not 
 directly attempt, was thus indirectly accomplished. The liberties of the people cannot 
 be safe, when, by indirect legislation, a distinctly recognized violation of the Consti- 
 tution is perpetrated, and a precedent is established of such evil omen. The dangerous 
 consequences of that measure are yet to be seen ; they are to burst forth in full vigor 
 at some future day. Be it remembered that the States, under the guidance of the 
 monied oligarchy, are plunged into the wildest schemes of internal improvement. 
 Jealous of each other's prosperity, rivaling one another in efforts to draw the trade 
 and commerce of the country through their own channels, they have undertaken 
 gigantic enterprises, and pledged the credit of the people for sums of money which 
 would have startled the Congress of the whole Union a few years since. States, 
 whose revenues are barely sufficient to carry on the operations of an economical 
 government, are borrowing enormous sums, to be expended by speculators and 
 improvement mongers, on thriftless schemes which can never be of any advantage 
 to the people. Already have eighteen^ out of six-and-twentij, involved themselves in 
 a debt of one hundred and seventy millions. That debt is annually and rapidly 
 increasing; and all the works put together, on which the money has been expended 
 have not, and never will have, a revenue sufficient to pay the accruing interest. The 
 monied oligarchy, who have involved the country in these embarrassments, and 
 placed themselves in a delicate position before the public, have but two alternatives 
 whereby to extricate the community, and save themselves from the denunciations of 
 the people. The one is, a resort to direct taxation ; the other, to the surplus revenues 
 of the United States. The first alternative they will never adopt, so long as it can 
 possibly be avoided. They know very well that while they do not resort directly 
 to the pockets of the people, they can cheat them, delude them, or oppress them, to 
 their heart's content, and they will never detect the cause. But an open demand 
 upon the purse-strings, an actual withdrawal of the taxes from the hands of the 
 people, awakens their attention ; it sets them to prying and examining into things. 
 They will want to know for what purposes their money is abstracted from them. 
 Such an inquisitive disposition would not at all suit the taste of the monied oligarchy, 
 who know they could not give a just account of their stewardship. Direct taxation, 
 therefore, is not to be thought of; the other alternative is the only one left, and, hap- 
 pily for all the schemes of the oligarchy, the very best that could be devised. A 
 large surplus revenue, arising from the sales of public lands and the duties on 
 foreign importations, can only be obtained by a connection of the Government with 
 the banks, and an indiscriminate reception of their paper issues in payment of the 
 public dues. Tlicn, besides the entire force of the oligarchy, wielding all the monied 
 resources of the country, as we have shown, and pressing the necessity of this 
 Union, if we consider for a moment the tremendous auxiliary forces they have in 
 those who are interested in the thousand petty schemes of internal improvement in 
 all the six-and-twenty States. Here is an honest, well-meaning man, from some 
 remote section, sitting in the Legislature of his State. Catching the mania for 
 improvement, he has a little scheme of his own, by which he hopes to benefit his 
 constituents, increase his own popularity, and retain his seat in the public councils. 
 His mind is wholly intent upon that; he thinks of nothing else; and is willing to 
 resort to any honorable means to gain friends and votes for his favorite enterprise. 
 But he is told that the resources and the credit of the State have been exhausted • 
 that a resort to direct taxation would blow up their schemes and themselves at once; 
 and that the only hope of success is to obtain a surplus revenue from the Federal 
 Government. As the precedent of distribution has already been set, we have nothin" 
 to do but obtain the surplus, which might readily be had, could those radicals be 
 once put down, and the Government permitted to go on in its usual course. Could 
 the public dues be paid in such bank notes as the people receive, and again deposited 
 in the banks, to be loaned out to speculators in public lands, and dealers in foreign 
 
12 
 
 commerce, we would soon have a revenue for distribution, sufficient to accomplish 
 all our purposes; to pay the State debt, which has become a serious matter, and to 
 complete all our schemes of improvement. Yielding to the plausibility of an argu- 
 ment which solves so many perplexing difficulties, and only suggests that things 
 be permitted to go on in their usual course, a really honest man, and through him his 
 constituents, who would not directly do any thing to jeopard the institutions of their 
 country, are made indirectly to favor schemes whose inevitable results must be to 
 bring down the States in vassalage to a central power, and finally to subvert the 
 liberties of the people. This conflict, therefore, between the people and their rulers — 
 the monied oligarchy — the revolution, so far from being at an end, so far from being 
 accomplished, has only begun. We are now enjoying a short armistice — living in 
 a kind of armed neutrality ; but when the shout for the rally and the onset is again 
 heard, we shall find a host of auxiliaries, we little dreamed of, arrayed against the 
 people. Many from among themselves, whose feelings and principles are the same 
 with their own, led astray by the petty interests of the moment, and duped by the 
 plausible insinuations of the oligarchy, will, in the next contest, be found arrayed 
 against them. With earnestness, therefore, and sincerity, we warn the people, and 
 tell them not to be deceived. The final conflict has yet to come ; the shock of the 
 allied forces has still to be met; the Waterloo field has yet to be fought. It 
 was only deferred by the catastrophe which has recently befallen the banks — a 
 catastrophe brought on them by their own friends ; but ordained and overruled by 
 kind Providence, as the means of opening the eyes of the people, alarming them at 
 their perilous condition, and preparing them with more earnestness and resolution to 
 enter into the coming battle. 
 
 The monied oligarchy having succeeded beyond their most sanguine expectations, 
 and overflowing with the ideal wealth poured into their laps by the credit and 
 resources of the Government, became more avaricious than ever ; and, in endeavour- 
 ing to divide more equally among themselves the spoils of victory, overacted their 
 parts ; brought a great calamity upon the country ; exposed the unsoundness of their 
 doctrines, and the hollowness of that imaginary prosperity with which they had 
 cheated and deluded the people. No proposition in political economy can be clearer 
 than this : that the act of June, 1836, was the immediate and prime cause of the 
 calamities which subsequently befel the banks in 1837. A few plain principles in 
 connection with the history of these transactions will place the proposition beyond 
 controversy. 
 
 Currency, like water, is always seeking its level — tending perpetually to a com- 
 mon centre. As the little rivulets that bubble up among the hills flow into each 
 other, increasing and expanding as they go onward, until they pour their tributary 
 streams into the great ocean of waters, so does currency in like manner, originating 
 in small quantities in the remote and interior sections of the country, flow onward, 
 increasing as it advances, vmtil it finally falls into the great currents which are per- 
 petually revolving around the emporiums of trade and commerce. Where all the 
 agricultural productions of the country are accumulated, or their values exchanged 
 for the manufactured articles and imported goods that may be consumed, there the 
 greatest quantity of currency is needed, not only as a standard of value, but as the 
 means of regulating the exchanges, and of liquidating the numerous balances which 
 daily occur in every transaction. Hence a circulating medium is required in very small 
 proportions in the interior of the country. It is always tending towards the great 
 mart of trade; and any attempt to disturb this uniform course would be as destruc- 
 tive in its consequences as a violation committed on the laws of physical nature. 
 
 An attempt to force water up stream would not be more disastrous than a similar 
 attempt to force the currency backward in its channels. The soundest circulating 
 medium and credit, based on the actual capital and productions of the country, when 
 turned aside from their natural course, and disturbed in their accustomed revolutions 
 through the emporiums of trade, would, from the very laws that govern them, fall 
 into irregularities and embarrassment. How much more necessarily must those 
 
13 
 
 consequences have followed the actual condition of those two main springs of national 
 prosperity at the time of the act now under consideration'? In June, 183G, some 
 twenty-five or thirty banks had in their possession, on deposits, more than thirty- 
 tkree millions of public funds. This money, and private deposites, and their own 
 capital, together with their credit, so far as it could be extended, were all loaned out 
 to individuals and companies engaged in speculations in public lands, private lands, 
 lots, improvements, stocks — on enterprises doubtful in their character, and depending 
 on remote contingencies for a profitable return of the investment; so tliat the banks, 
 in case of an emeigency, contrary to the laws of sound banking, could scarcely 
 command a dollar of their resources. All the other banks in llie Union followed 
 their example. Public officers also loaned out the funds in their possession, or 
 employed them in their own private speculations. They could not perceive why 
 that privilege should be allowed the banks and not to themselves. The only expecta- 
 tion the banks had of finally returning the public funds was founded on a fortunate 
 result of the speculations in which their debtors were engaged, and on their own 
 nominal and spurious capital. The public officers had their cwn private fortunes, 
 the fortunes of their securities, and in like manner the fortunate results of the specu- 
 lations in which they or their borrowers had engaged. And if the same rigid 
 exactions were made of the one as of the other, the chances are in favor of the public 
 officer, that he would pay a larger per cent, than the banks, on the public funds in 
 their possession. At any rate, it is very natural that he sliould think so. And as 
 there was no rule of justice by which the bank monopolist should enjoy such advan- 
 tages over the individual; and as there was no law ] rohibiting him from using the 
 public funds, he followed the example that had been set him ; and, along with all 
 the rest of the world, plunged into every kind of speculation. A universal system 
 of credit, from the reckless man of enterprise down lo the day laborer, was created 
 on the facilities fiirnished by the banks. And they thought themselves enabled to do 
 so, in consequence of their connection with the Government, and their possession of 
 the national resources. Every body was dealing on the credit of the banks, and 
 the banks on the credit of the Government. It is obvious, therefore, that the very 
 existence of this gossamer work depended on an undisturbed Cc ntinuance of the 
 existing relations between the parties. But many of the Banking interetj. were not 
 contented with the existing state of things. A few only of the fraternity enjoyed a 
 monopoly that was designed for the whole. ' We should never have joined, jaid 
 they, ' in a crusade against the Bank of the United States, could we have anticipated 
 such results. We cannot be satisfied with any thing less than an equal distribu- 
 tion of the spoils.' An equal distribution was, therefore, agreed upon. 
 
 An act was passed, requiring " that at least one (deposite bank) shall be selected 
 in each State and Territory ; and that the Secretary of the Treasury shall not suffer 
 to remain in any deposite hank anamount of public moneys more than equal to three- 
 fourths of the amount of its capital stock actually paid in; the Secretary was also 
 required to see that the banks kept in their vaults such an amount of specie as shall be^ 
 in his opinion, necessary to render the said banks safe depositories of the public 
 moneys." 
 
 The operation of such provisions, which were intended, in the language of the 
 act, "for purposes of equalization" must be obvious to the commonest observer. To 
 take the funds out of the natural channels of trade, where they had been accumu- 
 lated, and distribute them among eight-and-twenty States and Territories; to 
 compel the banks to divide some forty millions oi mowcy OLiwong three-time:: the 
 number of depositories; and to force them to check and draft on each other for the 
 amount of specie that might be considered safe by the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 were operations of such severity as to test the strength of the soundest institutions, 
 and to derange the best condition of the currency. If the mere transfer of three or 
 four millions, from the Bank of the United States to other depositories on the cpp^ sice 
 side of the street, was sufficient to produce the panic, the dist.-ess, and ihc disasters 
 of 1834, how much more ruinous must have been the consequences of the law now 
 
14 
 
 under consideration 1 Out of their own mouths, therefore, we condemn them. But 
 this was not all. The banks had to go through the ordeal, above described, from 
 June to January, 1837. After that period they were required, within the space of 
 nine months, to distribute thirty-seven millions of dollars among all the States of the 
 Union; and, within two-thirds of that time, they actually distributed i?ocw<(/-e?gAi 
 millions. This vast sum, which had been loaned to individuals, and had found its 
 way into all the channels and ramifications of trade, was now suddenly to be with- 
 drawn and scattered to the four winds. This fund, so far as it might be used as a 
 means of adjusting the delicate relations between the banks and their numerous 
 debtors, which it had been mainly used in creating, was to be totally annihilated. 
 Indeed, annihilation, a bonfire of the paper, or a sinking of them in the ocean, would 
 have been much better for ihe banks than the operation actually required. Boston, 
 for example, was made to throw back into Maine, New Hampshire, and other places 
 that trade with her, those funds which had accumulated there in the usual course 
 of trade; she was required to create a debt against herself, and subject herself to 
 drafts, and that for specie too, from regions which, in the natural course of business, 
 ought to be indebted to her. In this way, contrary to every known law of currency, 
 New York city alone was required to szailev thi licen millioiis, or more, into Vermont, 
 Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
 Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. But, notwithstanding that ruin was 
 the inevitable consequence of so radical and disorganizing a law ; and though the 
 banks were forewarned to prepare for its operations, yet, taken as a whole, they 
 never made any preparations, took no precautions whatsoever to arrest the evils or 
 to blunt the force of the shock that was coming upon them. Instead of reducing 
 their business, as prudence, honesty, and a just regard to the welfare of the country 
 would have suggested, their line of discounts, and their issues, were actually greater 
 in the spring of 1837, just before the suspension, than they were in the autumn pre- 
 ceding. While the laws of currency were totally deranged, and all the channels of 
 business were billowing up from their deep foundations, the banks crowded all can- 
 vass, and madly pressed forward as though they were sailing on tlie bosom of a 
 summer's sea, fanned by the breath of zephyrs. 
 
 How the monied oligai-chy could have ever framed such a law, in the first instance — 
 for they were alone concerned in it, with the exception of a few deluded friends of 
 the people, who had been deceived by their doctrines — has always been a matter of 
 astonishment to us. We never could account for them but on one principle, that 
 whom God designs to destroy, he first makes mad — quern Dens vult perdere, prius 
 demcntat. Believing that he had designed to save our Republic, as an example 
 and a guide to the world, we fondly trusted that he was about to adopt their own 
 chosen means as the instrument to crush the enemy which had been cherished in its 
 bosom, and to frighten away the vultures that had been feeding on its vitals. We 
 had no commiseration, therefore, for the monied oligarchy, when, in 1837, they 
 brought on themselves a train of calamities. And yet, indeed, they needed no com- 
 miseration. They had entire control over the legislation of the country, and knew 
 very well how to use it in such way as to cast all the burthens of their own folly and 
 madness on the shoulders of the people. Had they not been conscious of their power, 
 they never would have exercised, as they did, the high prerogatives of sovereignty. 
 
 Some eight or nine hundred banks, having in their possession the currency of the 
 country, resolved, by the common impulse and sympathy of interest, and with a 
 simultaneous movement, to depreciate that currency — to debase it, in some instances, 
 ten, some twenty, and some thirty per cent, below the constitutional standard of 
 value. This high-handed act of usurpation and tyranny was no sooner committed 
 than the State Legislatures were assembled to sanction and justify it. If penalties 
 and forfeitures were to be incurred for this outrage on the rights of the people, or if 
 any restrictions had been imposed on the operations of the banks in any of the 
 States, those were the places in which the Legislatures met to suspend the penalties 
 and forfeitures, remove the restrictions, make depreciated irredeemable bank paper 
 
15 
 
 a legal tender ; to extend it through all the channels of trade, by adopting it in the 
 minutest fractions of currency; to magnify the necessities which were beyond the 
 control of the banks, and had forced them into their present position; and to praise 
 their magnanimity and forbearance in shaving, and not crushing, the people. Good 
 citizens of the United States, pause here for one moment, and reflect on the brief his- 
 tory of one year, extending from June, 183G, to June, 1837. Consider the dangerous 
 and fatal precedent of distributing the surplus revenues among the States, as a 
 means of corruption, a basis for increased banking, and a rich boon to be scram- 
 bled after by the wild schemes of internal improvement. Consider how the public 
 funds were scattered among the States and Territories, not with a regard to their 
 safe-keeping and disbursement, but solely with regard to the avaricious demand of 
 the banks. Consider the bold and reckless career of those institutions, in the midst 
 of known and acknowledged dangers. Consider, when those dangers could no 
 longer be avoided, with what perfect unanimity they resolved to defy all laws and 
 penalties, violate their faith and obligations to the country, and rely on their own 
 omnipotence for protection and justification. And consider, above all, the unani- 
 mous voice with which your representatives resolved to accept the proffered bribe ; 
 and with what alacrity they came together to praise, justify, and sustain all the 
 subsequent acts of bank usurpation. Can any man reflect seriously on these things 
 and be not satisfied that all power has departed from the people, and is lodged in 
 the hands of a monied oligarchy 1 Then would he not be convinced, though one 
 rose from the dead. 
 
 But the chronicle of their deeds is not yet complete. After debasing the currency, 
 violating every legal or moral obligation binding upon them ; and while calling 
 together their liege subjects and willing friends to register such edicts as they might 
 prescribe in the premises, they had the audacity to demand that the Federal Gov- 
 ernment also should continue to receive their depreciated paper, and retain the banks 
 as the agents to collect, transfer, and disburse the national revenues. Entreaties, 
 remonstrances, and, finally, threats of violence and revolution, were resorted to as 
 means of intimidating the Executive, and forcing them to accept the immoral, fraudu- 
 lent, and debasing terms of the oligarchy. The President pointed them to the Con- 
 stitution, which recognised nothing but gold and silver as a legal tender ; and to 
 the laws, which would receive nothing but gold and silver, or their equivalent, in 
 payment of the public dues. But it was all in vain. 
 
 Men who regarded such obligations as mere cob- webs, to be brushed aside when- 
 ever they stood in the way of their interest or their advancement, could not conceive 
 how others were so scrupulous in their observance. Their clamor and denuncia- 
 tion grew louder and louder. They even had the cunning and the adroitness to cast 
 on the Executive the odium of their own acts. Having debased their paper below 
 the constitutional standard, they thereby created two currencies — the better for the 
 Government, and the baser for the people — and made the salaries of Government 
 officers ten or fifteen per cent, more valuable than the same nominal amount received 
 by the people. This odious distinction was charged on the President ; he was 
 charged with the design of ruining the people, and of fattening an army of office- 
 holders on their misfortunes. Happily for the country, however, the President was 
 possessed of a wisdom and a firmness which eminently fitted him for the crisis of 
 the times. His duty was plain before him, and he steadily pursued it. He directed 
 circulars to be sent to all the collectors, receivers, and disbursing officers, command- 
 ing that nothing but gold and silver, or its equivalent, shall be received in payment 
 of public dues, or disbursed in payment of public creditoi-s; and when Congress 
 assembled in September, 1837, he recommended a total separation of bank and State — 
 a complete divorce of Government from the embraces of the whole banking system. 
 
 This measure constitutes the second grand epoch in the History of the Revolution 
 through which we are now passing. The high tower of the oligarchy, their bastile 
 of strength, had been hurled to the earth. Their thinking-head and controlling will 
 had been taken from them ; but with the instinct of self-preservation they rallied 
 
16 
 
 on the thousand other corporations prepared to their hand, seized the reins of Gov- 
 ernment, and were well nigh overturning the institutions, and crushing the liberties 
 of the people, when by one false move they stumbled and fell. At that critical junc- 
 ture, at that providential period, the President of the United States, truly represent- 
 ing the feelings and the interests of the people, lifted up the constitutional standard, 
 and called on all who loved their country to come to the rescue, and save it from de- 
 struction. Until this crisis in their affairs, the oligarchy had always been divided 
 in their councils, and estranged from each other in their feelings. Those who had 
 sustained the Bank of the United States were angry with that portion of the frater- 
 nity who joined in putting it down, in order to build up their own petty institutions, 
 and to usurp that autliority which properly belongs to a National Institution. The 
 minor interests, on the other hand, were always jealous and suspicious, lest the greater 
 should again wrest from them tthe power they felt themselves happy in having 
 obtained ; but the whole craft was now endangered. Recent events had opened 
 the eyes of the people, and they showed a determination to bring back that power 
 which, by the laws of nature, and by their own Constitution, was vested in them ; 
 but which, for nearly fifty years, had been lodged in the hands of associated wealth. 
 In this state of things the oligarchy were not long in coming to their conclusions. 
 They might quarrel with each other over the spoils in the hour of triumph and 
 security, but a common danger from without would soon bring them together for 
 mutual defence. 
 
 Differing in no principle whatever, and slightly only in the detail of their mea- 
 sures, the one advocating a United States Bank, the other a United States Banking 
 System, the two wings of this great interest were resolved that their little rivalries for 
 power and for interest should not be an obstacle in the way of a union against the 
 common enemy. When the proposition, therefore, was made for a total divorce, all 
 petty feuds were buried. Pilate and Herod made friends — entered into a close 
 union — formed an alliance offensive and defensive, and have been ever since zealously 
 cooperating to effect the same object — a re-union of the Government with the bank- 
 ing interest. 
 
 Notwithstanding the total failure of all their schemes ; notwithstanding it was 
 obvious as day that the operations of their own hand had brought the calamities 
 upon them, yet the Conservative wing of the oligarchy insisted that the specie cir- 
 cular had done all the mischief; patched up another scheme of five and twenty banks, 
 without doubt, embracing the old United States Bank, and urged that upon Con- 
 gress for their adoption. They insisted that Government should take it in their em- 
 braces — place their confidence in it, and thereby restore confidence in the people. If 
 the Government refused to do this, they declared it would shake the credit of the 
 banks, and of bank paper ; paralyze their ability to assist the energies of the people 
 in recovering from the recent shock, and postpone indefinitely the possibility of 
 resumption. 
 
 The Federal wing of the oligarchy, who in former times, when this scheme was 
 opposed to their own, condemned and ridiculed it, were now loud in its praises, and 
 recommended it as a panacea to heal the maladies of the country. The Representa- 
 tives of the people, however, awoke from the lethargy of long years, refused to adopt 
 any such system. Yet none of the predicted evils have come to pass. Many of the 
 banks finding that the Executive resolutely persisted in adhering to the constitution 
 and the laws, and steadily refused having any dealings with them or their debased 
 currency; finding that their friends in Congress were not strong enough to force 
 him from that position ; and perceiving that public sentiment was rising against 
 them, resolved immediately to fall back into their usual channels of business, and 
 commence the curtailment and redemption of their paper issues. Mr. Biddle, how- 
 ever, entrenched himself behind his cotton bags, and declared that he would not 
 resume until the Government abandoned its position. All the banks South and 
 West of him, being entirely under his control, were compelled to follow his example. 
 But he, at length yielding to the considerations of interest, resumed specie payments 
 
17 
 
 tJiat he might consummate a favorable contract with the Government, which they 
 refused to complete until his notes were made equivalent to specie, and his vaults » 
 legal depository, by a resumption of specie payment. Again following his example, 
 all the banks South and West attempted to resume. Now we call on the people to 
 bear in mind the history of this transaction— to treasure it up as a precious truth to 
 be of infinite service hereafter. That by a steady adherence to the conslitutionaZ 
 standard on the -part of the Government, the hanks have been compelled to come up 
 to that standard. Their obvious design was to force the Government down to 
 their level; to constrain them, as they had done the States, to legalize bank paper, 
 and to receive and pay it out to public creditors. Let us suppose, for a mo- 
 ment, they had succeeded in the accomplishment of their purposes. What would 
 have been the consequences ? In many of the Atlantic States bank paper was 
 depreciated about ten per cent. In the South and West it was depreciated, in 
 many instances, five-and-twenty per cent. If the Government then had con- 
 sented to receive bank paper, a nominal payment of one hundred dollars in the At- 
 lantic States would have amounted to ninety dollars when valued by the constitu- 
 tional standard : a similar payment in the South and West, estimated in the same 
 way, would have amounted to seventy-five dollars,— a. loss in the one case of a 
 tejith, and in the other, of a fourth of the entire revenue. Public creditors would have 
 been paid in the same unequal proportions. Not to speak of the unconstitutionality 
 and injustice of such a course, what effect would it have had on the morals and tem- 
 per of the people "? Every one would strive to make the best of such a state of things, 
 and to derive from it all the advantages he could. There would be the strongest in- 
 ducement to all the States to depreciate their currency as much as possible, seeing 
 that all have been placed on the same level by the Government. The constitutional 
 standard being lost sight of, and the banks no longer required to keep their issues 
 within a certain ratio to the precious metals on hand, would pour forth their paper 
 rags without stint, until one dollar in silver would be worth a hundred, then two 
 hundred, then four, then five hundred, constantly sinkinguntil finally the whole would 
 come down a dead mass, and involve the honest farmers and laborers in utter ruin. 
 Such were the consequences of excessive issues of continental money during the 
 Revolution ; and of assignats in France ; and such would have been the consequences 
 of the measures proposed and urged by the banks and their friends at the time of the 
 suspension. And to such a condition are thcij resolved at last to bring us. At no 
 period of pecuniary derangement and disaster, was the disproportion between bank 
 issues and the specie for its redemption greater than at the present moment. 
 
 The banks are immersed m a debt of more than one hundred and ten millions 
 of dollars abroad, which at a moment's notice may drain the country of all its specie 
 on a demand of foreign capitalists. From a tabular statement of the returns of the 
 local banks throughout the United States, received at the Treasury Department, for 
 the period nearest January, 1839, it appears that the loans, discounts, and circulation 
 of the banks there enumerated, exceeded the total amount of redemption specie by 
 four hundred and seventy millions of dollars. 
 
 The necessary results are beginning to appeai-, banks are suspending and blowing 
 up in every section of the Union. A sky-rocket at regular intervals is shot into the 
 heavens as a signal of distress. Alarm and agitation pervade the whole fraternity, 
 and at no distant period we may look for another panic and general prostration. 
 But notwithstanding these threatening signs of the times, the bank mania is evidently 
 on the increase. We daily hear from the State Legislatures, of new creations of 
 banks, and enlargement of the capital of old ones, and the incorporation of inter- 
 nal improvement companies with banking privileges. A new impulse, a perfect 
 steam-engine propulsion, has recently been given by the introduction of what is 
 called the free banking system. Be it known that we are friendly to a free banking 
 system based on specie and real capital, and confined strictly to trading and com- 
 mercial purposes. But the free banking system now in fashion is the monstrum hor- 
 rendum of this present Revolution, and is destined to play more havoc with the 
 2 
 
18 
 
 morals, fortunes, and liberties of the people, than the famed guillotine with the heads 
 of men. 
 
 Judging of its spirit and final development from what has already been done, we 
 may fairly infer that issues of this new invention will in a short time equal in nom- 
 inal value the entire property, both personal and real, of the whole Union. Mort- 
 gages on real estate, negroes, and stocks, thereby embracing every kind of property, 
 will be made the basis of banking operations ; and every one fearing that his neigh- 
 bor may derive more advantages from it than himself, will eagerly pledge his for- 
 tune, and press into the scheme, so that the people and the banks will be involved 
 and entangled with each other in paper credits in some form or other, to the entire 
 amount of property in the country. Now, when we consider that a circulating 
 medium sufficient for all business purposes is only required to bear a certain ratio, 
 one-fifth or one-twentieth, as some make it, to the annual productions — a currency such 
 as ours is destined to be, — equaling in nominal value — not only the annual produc- 
 tions, but the entire property of the community, both personal and real, must sink 
 down of its own weight ; its enormous over proportions nuist crumble it in, and crush 
 it into a mass of ruins. The whole circulation must become spurious and worthless — 
 a world of ; promises without the intention or capacity of fulfilment — a bottomless 
 gulf of falsehoods, in which all things, public and private, are doomed to sink and 
 disappear. But do the original inventors of the falsehood, the cunning forger of the 
 lies, suffer the smart of their detection and protest '? Oh, no ! Oh, no ! that were 
 some compensation, but far otherwise is the result. Lies, and the burthen of evil, 
 they bring are passed on, shifted from back to back, and from rank to rank — and so 
 land ultimately on the hard labouring mass who with spade and mattock, with sore 
 heart and empty loallct, daily come in co7itact with reality — a7id can pass the cheat no 
 further. 
 
 Then will the tyrant come, and, like another Neptune, will ride over the troubled 
 billows, wave his omnipotent trident, bid the waters cease their commotions, roll 
 back into the caves, and be hushed, and forever after will reign in undisputed sway 
 with a rod of iron. Such will be the end of the Revolution, dimly shadowed forth 
 because the reality has yet to come. But if the events do not fulfil our words, then 
 say we are false prophets, and have not rightly warned the people ; yet we are deeply 
 impressed with a consciousness that the truth only has been delineated, and unless the 
 people take heed in time, such must be their inevitable doom. If they will not heed 
 our voice of warning, we pray them to learn wisdom from their own experience. 
 Look back on the history of the oligarchy for the last fifty years, such as we have 
 portrayed, it and such as we know it to have been, and what do we find 1 Repeated 
 acts of violence on the constitution ; a continued prostitution of the laws for selfish 
 and fraudulent purposes — and a total perversion of Government to the oppression and 
 ruin of the people, and the aggrandisement of themselves. Our fathers declared, even 
 before the constitution was formed, that the principles and the favorite measures of 
 the oligarchy " ?6-c?T incompatible with the public safety, totally destructive of that 
 equality ivhich ought to prevail in a republic." The bitter experience of half a cen- 
 tury has impressed upon us the truth of their anticipations, yet we linger! still hesi- 
 tate to go forward and meet the lowering front of the enemy. Are you prepared 
 then, sons of America ! tamely to yield up the hereditary franchises of more than 
 two centuries, and the birthright of your fathers, won by their blood and treasure. 
 Are you prepared as degenerate sons to receive the chains which are forging for you 1 
 To bow in willing submission to the yoke inimical interests are about to bind 
 upon your necks. If your hearts have not been tamed by long years of usurpation, 
 and your spirits enervated by the degeneracy of the times; if you still love liberty, 
 and the blessings of independence, and are willing to lifl a hand in their defence, then 
 come and rally around the standard of the Constitution. That has been planted on 
 a rock — eternal as the rock of ages — truth, justice, and the rights of man — princi- 
 ples understood, felt, and practised by your fathers, and bequeathed to you as the 
 greatest blessings that could be conferred by a race of patriots, heroes, and statesmen. 
 
19 
 
 ■ Amidst the difficulties that beset us, and in view of the dangers that threaten, in 
 those eternal principles alone can we find safety; on them alone we may repose 
 with an assurance that they will bear us through every peril. You have but little un- 
 derstood them, never practised them. From the foundation of the Government, you 
 have been in the hands of an oligarchy, lead, duped, deceived by them. For forty 
 years have they led you through the wilderness, and at length brought you to the 
 point whence you started — taxation without representation. As you love your sal- 
 vation, then, come out from among them. Have charity to believe they do not ma- 
 liciously design your subjugation; pity and forgive, but eschew their ways, 
 abandon their doctrines, their principles, their institutions, which are sinking you 
 into ruin, and plant yourselves, ere it be too late, on the rock of the Constitution. 
 What are the doctrines of the Constitution on that great question now before you— 
 which for forty years has been the source of endless perplexities, and has at length 
 come up for decision — which peculiarly constitutes the crisis of the times, and on 
 which the great battle for independence and dominion has to be fought? As truth 
 always is, they are few, simple, intelligible. They require that legislation shall not 
 be perverted from the common defence and general welfare, to promote the interests 
 of a few sections, classes, or individuals ; that no more revenues shall be collected 
 than are necessary for the economical administration of a Government limited to a 
 few general and specified objects ; that they shall be collected in actual values, gold 
 and silver, and not in spurious promises; shall be safely kept by sworn and chosen 
 officers of the Government, under high penalties for the faithful discharge of their 
 duties; shall not be long retained or accumulated, so as to be a temptation to the offi- 
 cer to use, and to the representative to misapply them ; but promptly employed for the 
 purposes tliey were collected, and thence returned into tlie ordinary channels of trade. 
 These are the principles of the Constitution, which must bring home conviction to 
 every mind ; these are the doctrines the present Administration have embraced as 
 their own , on which they liave staked their salvation, and now call upon the people 
 to come up to their support and defence. And most assuredly will they come. Can 
 any one hesitate 1 Is there one so besotted by the delusions of party, so en- 
 tangled in its meshes, that he is afraid to venture on these simple truths ? Then 
 let him go ; he is unworthy the name of a freeman. Afraid to trust the principles of 
 the Constitution! As well might the Cln-lstian be afraid of his Bible. When the 
 spirit of reformation comes upon the clmrch, after long years of corruption and 
 heresy, where does she look for guides to lead her through the mazes of a tangled 
 labyrinth — to the practices and homilies of fallible, designing men, or to the oracles 
 of inspiration 1 And in this day of political corruption and heresy, the spirit of 
 reformation has seized on the people, and to the oracles of the Constitution must they 
 look for their guides. 
 
 Resolved no longer to be duped and deceived, they are rousing themselves as one 
 man, and coming forth to the battle ; already do we feel the deep ground-swellings 
 that precede the rolling of the mighty billows; even now do we hear their voice, 
 mighty and terrible, like the voice of many waters. Onward they come, an innume- 
 rable host, eagerly pressing into the last Waterloo-field; aye — a more than Waterloo- 
 field — nobler principles, deeper interests, are stalled upon its issue ; such a field as was 
 fought on the plains of heaven, when angel and archangel, principalities and powers, 
 were assembled to prove the strength of Omnipotence over the prince of darkness. 
 And shall the sovereign decrees of the same almighty lawgiver, holy and just, pre- 
 vail on earth, is now the theme to be determined. Shall man, the workmanship of his 
 hands, endowed with faculties divine, and made heir of immortality, live according 
 to the laws of his nature, enjoy the birth-rights of his creation, tread the green earth, 
 breathe the limpid air untrammelled, live by the sweat of his own brow, enjoy the 
 fruits of his own toil, and as free of limb, so be free of heart; free to choose his mode 
 of happiness, and to follow the impulses of that divine, ever-active principle pervading 
 all things, existing in all natures, and strongest in his own bosom to subvert its 
 
20 
 
 noxious qualities, to sweep away infection, and suppress all eviH or shall be live in 
 servitude to his fellow man — till the earth, and bear its fruits an offering to a fellow 
 worm ; walk prone and cowering like a brute, employed as a tool, an implement or 
 passive thing, without acknowledgment of right or interest in the end ; his soul made 
 abject, to be abused as selfishness may prompt, made weak in all good, and strong 
 alone in evil 1 Shall this, the only spot on earth where man enjoys the high behests 
 of Heaven, and marches onward to fulfil the laws of his creation, cease to glory in 
 its privileges ; the star of hope to all nations be blotted from the firmament ; and the 
 peace and good will on earth ordained, of God, be put far back unto generations yet 
 unborn 1 These are the mighty interests thrown into the scales of perilous war — the 
 precious jewels cast on the uncei'tain tide of this revolution. Conscious of the awful 
 wagers staked upon the issue, the arch-enemy of truth and human kind, the grand 
 hierarch of apostacy, plies every enginery that malice or the dread of falling fortunes 
 can invent, to dupe and draw into his train states and principalities, and men of 
 every g rade, regardless of the means, as is his wont, so that the end may be obtained. 
 Amid the many thousands who have fallen a prey to his seductive arts, and tlie 
 shrewd appliances of private ends and selfish interests, there is one at least who 
 proves a faithful Abdiel. 
 
 Among the faitliless, faithful only he ; 
 
 Among the innumerable, false, unmoved, 
 
 Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified I 
 
 Nor number, nor example with him wrought 
 
 To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, 
 
 Though single. From amidst them forth he passed, 
 
 And with retorted scorn his back he turned 
 
 On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed ! 
 
 And who is this faithful Abdiell The standard of a mighty State he bears, 
 scorning to hold allegiance with apostacy ; foremost in the rank he moves, bearing 
 aloft a fit emblem of the State he is proud to serve; a goddess erect and calm, though 
 treading chains and tyranny beneath her feet ; a banner, which never waved 
 o'er craven hearts or faltering lines ; a surer harbinger of victory than the Prior's 
 sacred relique, on uplifted spear, in Flodden field. 
 
 Renowned old commonwealth ! Ancientest, purest, noblest, of the train of vestal 
 sisters, who feed the flame on freedom's altar ! When first the tyrant came, with 
 holy zeal, she fought against him, and flung upon the breeze her thrilling war-cry, 
 Give me liberly or give me death ! which now is echoed back with cheerful voice 
 by her thousand sons. First, to read aright the charter of human liberties, and pluck it 
 from the grasp of ruthless enemies ; again, she comes to save it from pervertion and 
 the taint of treacherous friends. Ever prodigal of her wealth and of her sons, in liberty's 
 defence; — pre-eminent she stands in deeds and sacrifice; and yet, above them all, she 
 values most, virtue, honor, and the sacred cause of truth. Scorning selfishness and 
 low ambition, one end alone she seeks — the common good. Who fails to study 
 that, although her son, she will repudiate. Even now a lesson she is teaching, fraught 
 with more of good to human kind than all the lessons of the schools — a lesson which 
 the world must learn ere Government can rest on sure and just foundations — that law 
 and truth, and principle alone, not feeble man, must be a nation's guide ; that no dis- 
 tinction, eminence or service, can compensate the loss of those great truths of which 
 she is alike the guardian and the foster mother. 
 
IN PRESS 
 
 AND PREPARING FOR EARLY PUBLICATION 
 
 MADISON'^'NATIONAL WORK 
 
 DEBATES IN THE CONGRESS OF THE CONFEDERATION, 
 
 AS TAKEN IN THE YEARS 1782, '83 AND 1787, BY J 
 
 JAMES MADISON, 
 
 THEN A MEMBER, 
 
 WITH LETTERS AND EXTRACTS OF LETTERS FROM HIM DURING T) 
 PERIODS OF HIS SERVICE IN THAT CONGRESS 
 
 AND 
 
 DEBATES IN THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 176 
 
 BY JAMES MADISON, A MEMBER. 
 
 The Subscribers bavins; purchased the Copy-right from Congress, and the preliminary arran 
 ments having been completed, the Public may expect the above anxiously looked for and tr 
 National Work in the course of the ensuing summer. 
 
 A more detailed prospectus of the work may be obtained from any of the Agents of the Dei 
 cratic Review. 
 
 The work will be published in two lar^e octavo volumes, uniform with Sparks fine edition 
 Washington and Franklin. The paper will be of the finest texture, hotpressed and manufactu 
 expressly for this work, and a large, and new type will be employed. 
 
 The price will be three dollars per volume, bound in embossed muslin, to be paid on the deliv 
 of the work. 
 
 As the edition to be printed will be limited, an early application will be necessary to sec 
 copies. Subscribers names way be sent by mail, or through any of their agents, to 
 
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 Washington, D. C 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC REVIEW. 
 
 The following resolutions passed in favor of the Democratic Review will show the estimatio 
 which the work is held by the defenders of the Democratic principles of 1776. 
 
 From the proceedings of the Democratic Convention at Worcester, Massachusetts. 
 
 '< Resolved, That among other instances of this recent employment of the Press in the causi 
 the People, this Convention notice with pleasure, that the confidence reposed in advance in 
 truly national periodical which a previous Convention recommended to the Democracy of Mai 
 chusetts, has been amply justified by the vigorous logic, the wit, the fancy, and the diversi 
 knowledge, which have enabled the Democratic Review not only to take high rank in our 
 litical literature, but as the organ of a sound political philosophy, worthy of the spirit of the age 
 illustrate and defend the great cause of equality against privilege." 
 
 From the proceedings of the great State Demacratic Convention of New Jersey, at which upwc 
 of 2000 Delegates attended. 
 
 Resolved, That we esteem the United States Magazine and Democratic Review as a powe 
 auxiliary to the great Republican cause, and most cordially recommend it to the Democratic pj 
 in the State of New Jersey, for their support, it sustains with boldness and distinguished abil 
 the great principles upon which American Liberty is based, and occupies no unenviable ppsif 
 as a literary periodical. r- f^-'