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Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)
Still dominating over the moneyed systems of the South and West, this former colossal institution was yet able to carry along with her nearly all the banks of one-half of the Union: and using her irredeemable paper against the solid currency of the New York and other Northern banks, and selling fictitious bills on Europe, she was able to run them hard for specie – curtail their operations – and make panic and distress in the money market. At the same time by making an imposing exhibition of her assets, arranging a reciprocal use of their notes with other suspended banks, keeping up an apparent par value for her notes and stocks by fictitious and collusive sales and purchases, and above all, by her political connection with the powerful opposition – she was enabled to keep the field as a bank, and as a political power: and as such to act an effective part in the ensuing presidential election. She even pretended to have become stronger since the time when Mr. Biddle left her so prosperous; and at the next exposition of her affairs to the Pennsylvania legislature (Jan. 1, 1840), returned her assets at $74,603,142; her liabilities at $36,959,539, and her surplus at $37,643,603. This surplus, after paying all liabilities, showed the stock to be worth a premium of $2,643,603. And all this duly sworn to.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
FIRST SESSION TWENTY-SIXTH CONGRESS: MEMBERS: ORGANIZATION: POLITICAL MAP OF THE HOUSE
Members of the SenateNew Hampshire. – Henry Hubbard, Franklin Pierce.
Maine. – John Ruggles, Reuel Williams.
Massachusetts. – John Davis. Daniel Webster.
Vermont. – Sam'l Prentiss, Sam'l S. Phelps.
Rhode Island. – Nehemiah R. Knight, N. F. Dixon.
Connecticut. – Thaddeus Betts, Perry Smith.
New York. – Silas Wright, N. P. Tallmadge.
New Jersey. – Sam'l L. Southard, Garret D. Wall.
Pennsylvania. – James Buchanan, Daniel Sturgeon.
Delaware. – Thomas Clayton.
Maryland. – John S. Spence, Wm. D. Merrick.
Virginia. – William H. Roane.
North Carolina. – Bedford Brown, R. Strange.
South Carolina. – John C. Calhoun, Wm. Campbell Preston.
Georgia. – Wilson Lumpkin, Alfred Cuthbert.
Kentucky. – Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden.
Tennessee. – Hugh L. White, Alex. Anderson.
Ohio. – William Allen, Benjamin Tappan.
Indiana. – Oliver H. Smith, Albert S. White.
Mississippi. – Robert J. Walker, John Henderson.
Louisiana. – Robert C. Nicholas, Alexander
Mouton.
Illinois. – John M. Robinson, Richard M.
Young.
Alabama. – Clement C. Clay, Wm. Rufus
King.
Missouri. – Thomas H. Benton, Lewis F.
Linn.
Arkansas. – William S. Fulton, Ambrose
Sevier.
Michigan. – John Norvell, Augustus S. Porter.
Members of the House of RepresentativesMaine. – Hugh J. Anderson, Nathan Clifford,
Thomas Davee, George Evans, Joshua A. Lowell,
Virgil D. Parris, Benjamin Randall, Albert
Smith.
New Hampshire. – Charles G. Atherton,
Edmund Burke, Ira A. Eastman, Tristram Shaw,
Jared W. Williams.
Connecticut. – Joseph Trumbull, William
L. Storrs, Thomas W. Williams, Thomas B.
Osborne, Truman Smith, John H. Brockway.
Vermont. – Hiland Hall, William Slade,
Horace Everett, John Smith, Isaac Fletcher.
Massachusetts. – Abbot Lawrence, Leverett
Saltonstall, Caleb Cushing, William Parmenter,
Levi Lincoln, [Vacancy,] George N. Briggs,
William B. Calhoun, William S. Hastings, Henry
Williams, John Reed, John Quincy Adams.
Rhode Island. – Chosen by general ticket.
Joseph L. Tillinghast, Robert B. Cranston.
New York. – Thomas B. Jackson, James de la Montayne, Ogden Hoffman, Edward Curtis,
Moses H. Grinnell, James Monroe, Gouverneur
Kemble, Charles Johnson, Nathaniel Jones,
Rufus Palen, Aaron Vanderpoel, John Ely,
Hiram P. Hunt, Daniel D. Barnard, Anson
Brown, David Russell, Augustus C. Hand, John
Fine, Peter J. Wagoner, Andrew W. Doig,
John G. Floyd, David P. Brewster, Thomas C.
Crittenden, John H. Prentiss, Judson Allen,
John C. Clark, S. B. Leonard, Amasa Dana,
Edward Rogers, Nehemiah H. Earl, Christopher
Morgan, Theron R. Strong, Francis P. Granger,
Meredith Mallory, Seth M. Gates, Luther C.
Peck, Richard P. Marvin, Millard Fillmore,
Charles F. Mitchell.
New Jersey. – Joseph B. Randolph, Peter
D. Vroom, Philemon Dickerson, William R.
Cooper, Daniel B. Ryall, Joseph Kille.
Pennsylvania. – William Beatty, Richard
Biddle, James Cooper, Edward Davies, John
Davis, John Edwards, Joseph Fornance, John
Galbraith, James Gerry, Robert H. Hammond,
Thomas Henry, Enos Hook, Francis James,
George M. Keim, Isaac Leet, Albert G. Marchand,
Samuel W. Morris, George McCulloch,
Charles Naylor, Peter Newhard, Charles Ogle,
Lemuel Paynter, David Petrikin, William S.
Ramsey, John Sergeant, William Simonton,
George W. Toland, David D. Wagener.
Delaware. – Thomas Robinson, jr.
Maryland. – James Carroll, John Dennis,
Solomon Hillen, jr., Daniel Jenifer, William
Cost Johnson, Francis Thomas, Philip F.
Thomas, John T. H. Worthington.
Virginia. – Linn Banks, Andrew Beirne,
John M. Botts, Walter Coles, Robert Craig,
George C. Dromgoole, James Garland, William
L. Goggin, John Hill, Joel Holleman, George
W. Hopkins, Robert M. T. Hunter, Joseph
Johnson, John W. Jones, William Lucas,
Charles F. Mercer, Francis E. Rives, Green B.
Samuels, Lewis Steinrod, John Taliaferro, Henry
A. Wise.
North Carolina. – Jesse A. Bynum, Henry
W. Connor, Edmund Deberry, Charles Fisher,
James Graham, Micajah T. Hawkins, John
Hill, James J. McKay, William Montgomery,
Kenneth Rayner, Charles Shepard, Edward
Stanly, Lewis Williams.
South Carolina. – Sampson H. Butler, John
Campbell, John K. Griffin, Isaac E. Holmes,
Francis W. Pickens, R. Barnwell Rhett, James
Rogers, Thomas B. Sumter, Waddy Thompson, jr.
Georgia. – Julius C. Alford, Edward J.
Black, Walter T. Colquitt, Mark A. Cooper,
William C. Dawson, Richard W. Habersham,
Thomas B. King, Eugenius A. Nisbet, Lott
Warren.
Alabama. – R. H. Chapman, David Hubbard,
George W. Crabb, Dixon H. Lewis, James Dillett.
Louisiana. – Edward D. White, Edward
Chinn, Rice Garland.
Mississippi. – A. G. Brown, J. Thompson.
Missouri. – John Miller, John Jameson.
Arkansas. – Edward Cross.
Tennessee. – William B. Carter, Abraham
McClellan, Joseph L. Williams, Julius W.
Blackwell, Hopkins L. Turney, William B.
Campbell, John Bell, Meredith P. Gentry,
Harvey M. Watterson, Aaron V. Brown, Cave
Johnson, John W. Crockett, Christopher H.
Williams.
Kentucky. – Linn Boyd, Philip Triplett, Joseph
Underwood, Sherrod Williams, Simeon W.
Anderson, Willis Green, John Pope, William J.
Graves, John White, Richard Hawes, L. W.
Andrews, Garret Davis, William O. Butler.
Ohio. – Alexander Duncan, John B. Weller,
Patrick G. Goode, Thomas Corwin, William
Doane, Calvary Morris, William K. Bond, Joseph
Ridgway, William Medill, Samson Mason,
Isaac Parish, Jonathan Taylor, D. P. Leadbetter,
George Sweeny, John W. Allen, Joshua
R. Giddings, John Hastings, D. A. Starkweather,
Henry Swearingen.
Michigan. – Isaac E. Crary.
Indiana. – Geo. H. Proffit, John Davis, John
Carr, Thomas Smith, James Rariden, Wm. W.
Wick, T. A. Howard.
Illinois. – John Reynolds, Zadok Casey,
John T. Stuart.
The organization of the House was delayed for many days by a case of closely and earnestly contested election from the State of New Jersey. Five citizens, to wit: John B. Aycrigg, John B. Maxwell, William Halsted, Thomas C. Stratton, Thomas Jones Yorke, had received the governor's certificate as duly elected: five other citizens, to wit: Philemon Dickerson, Peter D. Vroom, Daniel B. Ryall, William R. Cooper, John Kille, claimed to have received a majority of the lawful votes given in the election: and each set demanded admission as representatives. No case of contested election was ever more warmly disputed in the House. The two sets of claimants were of opposite political parties: the House was nearly divided: five from one side and added to the other would make a difference of ten votes: and these ten might determine its character. The first struggle was on the part of the members holding the certificates claiming to be admitted, and to act as members, until the question of right should be decided; and as this would give them a right to vote for speaker, it might have had the effect of deciding that important election: and for this point a great struggle was made by the whig party. The democracy could not ask for the immediate admission of the five democratic claimants, as they only presented a case which required to be examined before it could be decided. Their course was to exclude both sets, and send them equally before the committee of contested elections; and in the mean time, a resolution to proceed with the organization of the House was adopted after an arduous and protracted struggle, in which every variety of parliamentary motion was exhausted by each side to accomplish its purpose; and, at the end of three months it was referred to the committee to report which five of the ten contestants had received the greatest number of legal votes. This was putting the issue on the rights of the voters – on the broad and popular ground of choice by the people: and was equivalent to deciding the question in favor of the democratic contestants, who held the certificate of the Secretary of State that the majority of votes returned to his office was in their favor, – counting the votes of some precincts which the governor and council had rejected for illegality in holding the elections. As the constitutional judge of the election, qualifications and returns of its own members, the House disregarded the decision of the governor and council; and, deferring to the representative principle, made the decision turn, not upon the conduct of the officers holding the election, but upon the rights of the voters.
This strenuous contest was not terminated until the 10th of March – nearly one hundred days from the time of its commencement. The five democratic members were then admitted to their seats. In the mean time the election for speaker had been brought on by a vote of 118 to 110 – the democracy having succeeded in bringing on the election after a total exhaustion of every parliamentary manœuvre to keep it off. Mr. John W. Jones, of Virginia, was the democratic nominee: Mr. Jno. Bell, of Tennessee, was nominated on the part of the whigs. The whole vote given in was 235, making 118 necessary to a choice. Of these, Mr. Jones received 118: Mr. Bell, 102. Twenty votes were scattered, of which 11, on the whig side, went to Mr. Dawson of Georgia; and 9 on the democratic side were thrown upon three southern members. Had any five of these nine voted for Mr. Jones, it would have elected him: while the eleven given to Mr. Dawson would not have effected the election of Mr. Bell. It was clear the democracy had the majority, for the contested election from New Jersey having been sent to a committee, and neither set of the contestants allowed to vote, the question became purely and simply one of party: but there was a fraction in each party which did not go with the party to which it belonged: and hence, with a majority in the House to bring on the election, and a majority voting in it, the democratic nominee lacked five of the number requisite to elect him. The contest was continued through five successive ballotings without any better result for Mr. Jones, and worse for Mr. Bell; and it became evident that there was a fraction of each party determined to control the election. It became a question with the democratic party what to do? The fraction which did not go with the party were the friends of Mr. Calhoun, and although always professing democratically had long acted with the whigs, and had just returned to the body of the party against which they had been acting. The election was in their hands, and they gave it to be known that if one of their number was taken, they would vote with the body of the party and elect him: and Mr. Dixon H. Lewis, of Alabama, was the person indicated. The extreme importance of having a speaker friendly to the administration induced all the leading friends of Mr. Van Buren to go into this arrangement, and to hold a caucus to carry it into effect. The caucus was held: Mr. Lewis was adopted as the candidate of the party: and, the usual resolves of unanimity having been adopted, it was expected to elect him on the first trial. He was not, however, so elected; nor on the second trial; nor on the third; nor on any one up to the seventh: when, having never got a higher vote than Mr. Jones, and falling off to the one-half of it, he was dropped; and but few knew how the balk came to pass. It was thus: The writer of this View was one of a few who would not capitulate to half a dozen members, known as Mr. Calhoun's friends, long separated from the party, bitterly opposing it, just returning to it, and undertaking to govern it by constituting themselves into a balance wheel between the two nearly balanced parties. He preferred a clean defeat to any victory gained by such capitulation. He was not a member of the House, but had friends there who thought as he did; and these he recommended to avoid the caucus, and remain unbound by its resolves; and when the election came on, vote as they pleased: which they did: and enough of them throwing away their votes upon those who were no candidates, thus prevented the election of Mr. Lewis: and so returned upon the little fraction of pretenders the lesson which they had taught.
It was the same with the whig party. A fraction of its members refused to support the regular candidate of the party; and after many fruitless trials to elect him, he was abandoned – Mr. Robert M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, taken up, and eventually elected. He had voted with the whig party in the New Jersey election case – among the scattering in the votes for speaker; and was finally elected by the full whig vote, and a few of the scattering from the democratic ranks. He was one of the small band of Mr. Calhoun's friends; so that that gentleman succeeded in governing the whig election of speaker, after failing to govern that of the democracy.
In looking over the names of the candidates for speaker it will be seen that the whole were Southern men – no Northern man being at any time put in nomination, or voted for. And this circumstance illustrates a pervading system of action between the two sections from the foundation of the government – the southern going for the honors, the northern for the benefits of the government. And each has succeeded, but with the difference of a success in a solid and in an empty pursuit. The North has become rich upon the benefits of the government: the South has grown lean upon its honors.
This arduous and protracted contest for speaker, and where the issue involved the vital party question of the organization of the House, and where every member classified himself by a deliberate and persevering series of votes, becomes important in a political classification point of view, and is here presented in detail as the political map of the House – taking the first vote as showing the character of the whole.
1. Members voting for Mr. Jones: 113.
Judson Allen, Hugh J. Anderson, Charles G. Atherton, Linn Banks, William Beatty, Andrew Beirne, Julius W. Blackwell, Linn Boyd, David P. Brewster, Aaron V. Brown, Albert G. Brown, Edmund Burke, Sampson H. Butler, William O. Butler, Jesse A. Bynum, John Carr, James Carroll, Zadok Casey, Reuben Chapman, Nathan Clifford, Walter Coles, Henry W. Connor, Robert Craig, Isaac E. Crary, Edward Cross, Amasa Dana, Thomas Davee, John Davis, John W. Davis, William Doan, Andrew W. Doig, George C. Dromgoole, Alexander Duncan, Nehemiah H. Earl, Ira A. Eastman, John Ely, John Fine, Isaac Fletcher, John G. Floyd, Joseph Fornance, John Galbraith, James Gerry, Robert H. Hammond, Augustus C. Hand, John Hastings, Micajah T. Hawkins, John Hill of North Carolina, Solomon Hillen jr., Joel Holleman, Enos Hook, Tilghman A. Howard, David Hubbard, Thomas B. Jackson, John Jameson, Joseph Johnson, Cave Johnson, Nathaniel Jones, George M. Keim, Gouverneur Kemble, Daniel P. Leadbetter, Isaac Leet, Stephen B. Leonard, Dixon H. Lewis, Joshua A. Lowell, William Lucas, Abraham McLellan, George McCulloch, James J. McKay, Meredith Mallory, Albert G. Marchand, William Medill, John Miller, James D. L. Montanya, William Montgomery, Samuel W. Morris, Peter Newhard, Isaac Parrish, William Parmenter, Virgil D. Parris, Lemuel Paynter, David Petrikin, Francis W. Pickens, John H. Prentiss, William S. Ramsey, John Reynolds, R. Barnwell Rhett, Francis E. Rives, Thomas Robinson jr., Edward Rodgers, Green B. Samuels, Tristram Shaw, Charles Shepard, Albert Smith, John Smith, Thomas Smith, David A. Starkweather, Lewis Steenrod, Theron R. Strong, Henry Swearingen, George Sweeny, Jonathan Taylor, Francis Thomas, Philip F. Thomas, Jacob Thompson, Hopkins L. Turney, Aaron Vanderpoel, David D. Wagner, Harvey M. Watterson, John B. Weller, William W. Wick, Jared W. Williams, Henry Williams, John T. H. Worthington.
2. Members voting for Mr. Bell: 102.
John Quincy Adams, John W. Allen, Simeon H. Anderson, Landaff W. Andrews, Daniel D. Barnard, Richard Biddle, William K. Bond, John M. Botts, George N. Briggs, John H. Brockway, Anson Brown, William B. Calhoun, William B. Campbell, William B. Carter, Thomas W. Chinn, Thomas C. Chittenden, John C. Clark, James Cooper, Thomas Corwin, George W. Crabb, Robt. B. Cranston, John W. Crockett, Edward Curtis, Caleb Cushing, Edward Davies, Garret Davis, William C. Dawson, Edmund Deberry, John Dennis, James Dellet, John Edwards, George Evans, Horace Everett, Millard Fillmore, Rice Garland, Seth M. Gates, Meredith P. Gentry, Joshua R. Giddings, William L. Goggin, Patrick G. Goode, James Graham, Francis Granger, Willis Green, William J. Graves, Moses H. Grinnell, Hiland Hall, William S. Hastings, Richard Hawes, Thomas Henry, John Hill of Virginia, Ogden Hoffman, Hiram P. Hunt, Francis James, Daniel Jenifer, Charles Johnston, William Cost Johnson, Abbott Lawrence, Levi Lincoln, Richard P. Marvin, Samson Mason, Charles F. Mercer, Charles F. Mitchell, James Monroe, Christopher Morgan, Calvary Morris, Charles Naylor, Charles Ogle, Thomas B. Osborne, Rufus Palen, Luther C. Peck, John Pope, George H. Proffit, Benjamin Randall, Joseph F. Randolph, James Rariden, Kenneth Rayner, John Reed, Joseph Ridgway, David Russell, Leverett Saltonstall, John Sergeant, William Simonton, William Slade, Truman Smith, Edward Stanly, William L. Storrs, John T. Stuart, John Taliaferro, Joseph L. Tillinghast, George W. Toland, Philip Triplett, Joseph Trumbull, Joseph R. Underwood, Peter J. Wagner, Edward D. White, John White, Thomas W. Williams, Lewis Williams, Joseph L. Williams, Christopher H. Williams, Sherrod Williams, Henry A. Wise.
3. Scattering: 20.
The following named members voted for William C. Dawson, of Georgia.
Julius C. Alford, John Bell, Edward J. Black, Richard W. Habersham, George W. Hopkins, Hiram P. Hunt, William Cost Johnson, Thomas B. King, Eugenius A. Nisbet, Waddy Thompson, jr., Lott Warren.
The following named members voted for Dixon H. Lewis, of Alabama:
John Campbell, Mark A. Cooper, John K. Griffin, John W. Jones, Walter T. Colquitt.
The following named members voted for Francis W. Pickens, of South Carolina:
Charles Fisher, Isaac E. Holmes, Robert M. T. Hunter, James Rogers, Thomas B. Sumter. James Garland voted for George W. Hopkins, of Virginia. Charles Ogle voted for Robert M. T. Hunter, of Virginia.
CHAPTER XL.
FIRST SESSION OF THE TWENTY-SIXTH CONGRESS: PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
The President met with firmness the new suspension of the banks of the southern and western half of the Union, headed by the Bank of the United States. Far from yielding to it he persevered in the recommendation of his great measures, found in their conduct new reasons for the divorce of Bank and State, and plainly reminded the delinquent institutions with a total want of the reasons for stopping payment which they had alleged two years before. He said:
"It now appears that there are other motives than a want of public confidence under which the banks seek to justify themselves in a refusal to meet their obligations. Scarcely were the country and government relieved, in a degree, from the difficulties occasioned by the general suspension of 1837, when a partial one, occurring within thirty months of the former, produced new and serious embarrassments, though it had no palliation in such circumstances as were alleged in justification of that which had previously taken place. There was nothing in the condition of the country to endanger a well-managed banking institution; commerce was deranged by no foreign war; every branch of manufacturing industry was crowned with rich rewards; and the more than usual abundance of our harvests, after supplying our domestic wants, had left our granaries and storehouses filled with a surplus for exportation. It is in the midst of this, that an irredeemable and depreciated paper currency is entailed upon the people by a large portion of the banks. They are not driven to it by the exhibition of a loss of public confidence; or of a sudden pressure from their depositors or note-holders, but they excuse themselves by alleging that the current of business, and exchange with foreign countries, which draws the precious metals from their vaults, would require, in order to meet it, a larger curtailment of their loans to a comparatively small portion of the community, than it will be convenient for them to bear, or perhaps safe for the banks to exact. The plea has ceased to be one of necessity. Convenience and policy are now deemed sufficient to warrant these institutions in disregarding their solemn obligations. Such conduct is not merely an injury to individual creditors, but it is a wrong to the whole community, from whose liberality they hold most valuable privileges – whose rights they violate, whose business they derange, and the value of whose property they render unstable and insecure. It must be evident that this new ground for bank suspensions, in reference to which their action is not only disconnected with, but wholly independent of, that of the public, gives a character to their suspensions more alarming than any which they exhibited before, and greatly increases the impropriety of relying on the banks in the transactions of the government."
The President also exposed the dangerous nature of the whole banking system from its chain of connection and mutual dependence of one upon another, so as to make the misfortune or criminality of one the misfortune of all. Our country banks were connected with those of New York and Philadelphia: they again with the Bank of England. So that a financial crisis commencing in London extends immediately to our great Atlantic cities; and thence throughout the States to the most petty institutions of the most remote villages and counties: so that the lever which raised or sunk our country banks was in New York and Philadelphia, while they themselves were worked by a lever in London; thereby subjecting our system to the vicissitudes of English banking, and especially while we had a national bank, which, by a law of its nature, would connect itself with the Bank of England. All this was well shown by the President, and improved into a reason for disconnecting ourselves from a moneyed system, which, in addition to its own inherent vices and fallibilities, was also subject to the vices, fallibilities, and even inimical designs of another, and a foreign system – belonging to a power, always our competitor in trade and manufactures – sometimes our enemy in open war.
"Distant banks may fail, without seriously affecting those in our principal commercial cities; but the failure of the latter is felt at the extremities of the Union. The suspension at New York, in 1837, was every where, with very few exceptions, followed, as soon as it was known; that recently at Philadelphia immediately affected the banks of the South and West in a similar manner. This dependence of our whole banking system on the institutions in a few large cities, is not found in the laws of their organization, but in those of trade and exchange. The banks at that centre to which currency flows, and where it is required in payments for merchandise, hold the power of controlling those in regions whence it comes, while the latter possess no means of restraining them; so that the value of individual property, and the prosperity of trade, through the whole interior of the country, are made to depend on the good or bad management of the banking institutions in the great seats of trade on the seaboard. But this chain of dependence does not stop here. It does not terminate at Philadelphia or New York. It reaches across the ocean, and ends in London, the centre of the credit system. The same laws of trade, which give to the banks in our principal cities power over the whole banking system of the United States, subject the former, in their turn, to the money power in Great Britain. It is not denied that the suspension of the New York banks in 1837, which was followed in quick succession throughout the Union, was partly produced by an application of that power; and it is now alleged, in extenuation of the present condition of so large a portion of our banks, that their embarrassments have arisen from the same cause. From this influence they cannot now entirely escape, for it has its origin in the credit currencies of the two countries; it is strengthened by the current of trade and exchange, which centres in London, and is rendered almost irresistible by the large debts contracted there by our merchants, our banks, and our States. It is thus that an introduction of a new bank into the most distant of our villages, places the business of that village within the influence of the money power in England. It is thus that every new debt which we contract in that country, seriously affects our own currency, and extends over the pursuits of our citizens its powerful influence. We cannot escape from this by making new banks, great or small, State or National. The same chains which bind those now existing to the centre of this system of paper credit, must equally fetter every similar institution we create. It is only by the extent to which this system has been pushed of late, that we have been made fully aware of its irresistible tendency to subject our own banks and currency to a vast controlling power in a foreign land; and it adds a new argument to those which illustrate their precarious situation. Endangered in the first place by their own mismanagement, and again by the conduct of every institution which connects them with the centre of trade in our own country, they are yet subjected, beyond all this, to the effect of whatever measures, policy, necessity, or caprice, may induce those who control the credits of England to resort to. Is an argument required beyond the exposition of these facts, to show the impropriety of using our banking institutions as depositories of the public money? Can we venture not only to encounter the risk of their individual and mutual mismanagement, but, at the same time, to place our foreign and domestic policy entirely under the control of a foreign moneyed interest? To do so is to impair the independence of our government, as the present credit system has already impaired the independence of our banks. It is to submit all its important operations, whether of peace or war, to be controlled or thwarted at first by our own banks, and then by a power abroad greater than themselves. I cannot bring myself to depict the humiliation to which this government and people might be sooner or later reduced, if the means for defending their rights are to be made dependent upon those who may have the most powerful of motives to impair them."
