THE WAR ON THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES; OR, A REVIEW OF THE MEASURES OF THE ADMINISTRA- "Darkness was upon the face of the deep." By Thomas Of Gorder Philadelphia: KEY & BIDDLE, 23 MINOR STREET. Econ 4900.5 1050 204 ADVERTISEMENT. THE following sheets carry with them whatever apology may be necessary for their publication. When interests, so important to the country as a sound and uniform currency and the legitimate construction of the Constitution, are endangered, it is not less the duty, than the privilege, of the citizen, to participate in their discussion. It seemed to the author, that a concise account of the war on the Bank, with an inquiry into its causes and effects, would, at this moment, be useful in determining the great questions which Congress have remitted for decision to the people. In preparing such a work, he has derived much assistance from the debates in Congress; and has used, frequently with, yet often without, acknowledgment, the opinions of the principal debaters, governed by no other motive in his extracts, than to render his own views effective. June 23, 1834. 1 THE WAR ON THE BANK. THE foreigner, who, impelled by the desire to provide for himself and his progeny a safe and happy home, should have visited this country in May 1833, would have found, everywhere, abundantly, all the public and private sources of enjoyment which the most favourable descriptions of our government, our people, and our pursuits, might have taught him to expect. He would have beheld "the people delighted or contented with the apparent adjustment of some of the most fearful controversies that had ever divided them;" the debt, which, for many years, pressed upon the national resources, extinguished; the necessaries, and many of the luxuries of life, freed from impost, attainable almost at the cost of production; our money currency, the great instrument of successful economy, in a uniform and sound state; the chief magistrate of the Union, lately elected by a large majority, in condition to give to his administration the greatest unanimity, zeal and success, and, almost to extinguish party feuds; nature rewarding the husbandman with exuberant crops, and trade replenishing the coffers of the merchant and the nation; "the spindle and the shuttle, and every instrument of mechanic industry, pursuing their busy labours with profit; and internal improvements bringing down the remotest West to the shores of the Atlantic, and combining and compacting the dispersed inhabitants of our widely extended territory, as the inhabitants of a single state." Satisfied with the scenes around him, and the pleasant anticipations they justified, our foreigner would have returned to the eastern shores of the Atlantic to prepare for emigration. But how changed the scene, when, in May 1834, he should revisit it! The great works which were annihilating time and space are suspended, or sluggishly prosecuted; the contractors for public loans, and the subscribers to corporate stocks, being unable to pay their instalments; the instruments of the mechanic are idle, and their dispirited master, unemployed, either suffers want or anticipates its horrors, whilst consuming the stores of his successful industry; trade, at home and abroad, is greatly diminished; exchange, foreign and domestic, is depressed, and bills are negotiated with much difficulty; the price of public and corporate stocks has fallen from ten to forty per cent; and the principal articles of domestic production are sunk in still greater proportion, whilst real estate can be sold only at a yet greater sacrifice; money can no longer be procured on mortgage, even at the highest legal rate of interest, and is attainable on good paper, only, at great usury; corporate companies, in some instances, are unable to pay the interest on their borrowed money; the State banks, generally, without power to discount new paper, and the Bank of the United States contracting its accommodations, which heretofore, like fructifying streams, gave and vigor to enterprising labour; the currency of the country, deranged and dislocated, is fast verging from a specie medium to one of worthless paper-some of the State banks having already declared their inability to redeem their notes with coin; the suffering and indignant people are, everywhere, in primary meetings, declaring their grievances, reproaching their chief magistrate and his counsellors with abuse of delegated, and assumption of unlawful, power, and petitioning the unyielding Congress for instant and effectual relief. life Our astonished, but intelligent emigrant, doubting the reports of his too faithful senses and the testimony of his understanding, asks, whether these appearances be real, or the misrepresentations of factious partisans, got up for effect? But, entering the assemblies of the people, and observing the classes of which they are composed, his doubts instantly vanish. He sees, not some twenty or thirty party dependants, convened to maintain, with their voices, whatever their leaders may assert, to gain their daily bread; but thousands and tens of thousands of merchants and manufacturers, agriculturists and artisans, who quit not their employments for ordinary causes, nor busy themselves in public concerns, unless their liberties or means of prosperity be endangered. Assured that the appearances which every where meet his eye are not delusive, he seeks the cause of the extraordinary change; applying to those sages, whose long experience in public and private affairs has well fitted them to comprehend and unfold their most occult springs; and whose condition and stake in the community blend their interest, inseparably, with the public weal. His request for information is thus answered: "All the distress and embarrassment which astonishes you, is ascribable to a sudden, extraordinary and increased demand for commercial credit. The causes which have led to this, and which prevent its gratification, are somewhat complex, and re |