also, in great part, obtained control of the cotton trade, the situation was simply lamentable. When, therefore, the United States bank of Pennsylvania was closed on the 10th of October, it dragged nearly all the banks in the south and west after it.2 The crisis was neither as general as in 1837, nor was the consternation of the people caused by it expressed with nearly as much violence. But the discouragement was greater, and its effects lasted longer. People now saw more 'An account from New York, in the "London Bankers' Circular" of July 12, says: "The condition of the banks in the south is nowhere such as to enable them to grant increased accommodation; and, as you must have seen, those in Alabama and Mississippi (which together furnish more than half of our entire [cotton] crop by enumeration of bales, and fully twothirds in actual weight, have yet to resume specie payment. In fact, the commercial credit of those two states may be said to be wholly annihilated for the present. To avoid execution, not less than two hundred plantations in Mississippi have been abandoned, and the negroes carried off to Texas! where, for any purpose they can serve in raising cotton for years to come, they might as well have been locked up by the creditors of those planters in jail, as hundreds and thousands of others have been at the time they ought to have been employed in preparation for the ensuing crop. "Every one who has been in Mississippi says, the reports of distress are far short of the reality. On returning his writs unexecuted, the sheriff universally indorses them G. T., gone to Texas." Hazard, U. S. Commerc. and Statist. Reg., Aug., 1839, Vol. I., No. 10, p. 159. *Statesm.'s Man., II, p. 1237. Of 850 banks, 343 closed entirely, and 62 in part. W. G. Sumner, p. 152. The "North American Review," Jan., 1844, p. 121, gives the following description: "All property seemed for a while to have lost its value. . . . In some of the new states, it was difficult even for the wealthy to obtain money for the daily uses of life. We have heard of farmers, owning large and well stocked farms, who could hardly get money enough to pay the postage on a letter. They had scarcely any currency, and most of that which they had was bad. In the commercial states, matters were but little better. Failures were almost innumerable. Trade had fallen off, and, when prosecuted, was hazardous. A deep gloom settled upon men's minds. Governments felt it as much as individuals. Their ordinary resources were diminished. Their means of obtaining extraordinary supplies THE WHIGS AND A NATIONAL BANK. 217 clearly, and, moreover, the causes of the new misfortune were more apparent. It was no longer possible to make a scapegoat of the administration. The president, on the other hand, could, not without reason, use the new crisis as an argumentum ad hominem, in defense of his old principle, that if there were a connection of the finances with the banks, the interests of the states would always remain, to a greater or less extent, the plaything of private speculation. Even if it was somewhat strongly expressed, there was much truth in his assertion, that the banks did not now appeal to an actual necessity, but considered the suspension of specie payments sufficiently justified by its alleged expediency.1 It was evident that no reasoning and no experience was able to shake the faith of the whigs in the gospel of a national bank. On a question which is one of the most material differences in the constitution of parties, a whole party can never, from the very nature of the case, be set right. Only when the actual development of events has made it impossible to maintain the question any longer as a party question, can the right understanding of it become entirely general: resignation to the inevitable is in such case the condition precedent of knowledge. But in a democratic rewere lessened in proportion to the general distress. The physical means of making payment for their debts were wanting in some states, for there was no money to be had. The people were amazed at the extent of their own disasters, and afraid to act in any way, lest they should run into new mistakes." "They are not driven to it by the exhibition of a loss of public confidence, or of a sudden pressure from their depositors or noteholders; 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." Statesm.'s Man., II, p. 1236. public, parties generally almost balance each other, so that the weight which turns the scales is the small minority of the undecided, that is, those in whom the formation of their judgment keeps pace with the development of facts. Hence, a change of opinion by a few is frequently sufficient to bring the laws into harmony with the actual development of things, and thus to make both the former and the latter irreversible. Whether this point had been really reached already, only the next years could show. The sequel proved that both parties were at the time wonderfully deceived as to the true situation of affairs. The whigs did not recognize that at the moment that this administration carried the independent treasury through, the old struggle was finally decided: whatever fate future congresses might have in store for the law of the 4th of July, 1840, the finances and the banks could never again be yoked together after their virtual separation by the crisis of 1837 had, after the crisis of 1839, received the sanction of law. And the democrats did not understand that this question had been taken from the list of party questions proper, by the crisis of 1889, and had acquired a character entirely peculiar to itself. They, indeed,— and above all the president, — had good reason to rejoice and to congratulate themselves that the measure on which the administration bad staked its reputation had been carried out; but any inference from this to the prospects of the party, and especial y of the president, in the future, were Jaseless Tan Buren had won a brilliant vistory, and placed A's cuury under lasting obligatus to him; but, even at the moment of triumph, his and his party's overthrow was beyond denda when they declared that they would be satissad in de meu presidential election with nothing short of the scary the destruction of their opponents? Van Buren, in his inaugural address, had not devoted a single word to the impending economic dangers. In broad and general terms, he drew a picture of the wonderful development of the Union during the half century which had elapsed since its origin. With a just pride, the president alluded to the many dangers happily surmounted, as a proof that the faith in a great future for the republic had a firm foundation in the character of the people and in their institutions. Only on one question did he enter more into detail, and the confidence with which he represented it as a problem already solved was qualified by a ponderous if. To abide blindly and inviolably by the compromise of the fathers was, in his opinion, the only possible guaranty that that question would never be able to endanger the Union; and this guararty he considered entirely sufficient. The proof of this he democratic party shall merely prevail by an ordinary majority. With such a result, we shall acknowledge ourselves dissatisfied, disappointed. We must teach our opponents such a lesson as they have never yet received. We must administer a rebuke, a punishment, not soon to be forgotten, for this great national insult by which they, as an organized party, have afforded their last and worst illustration of that old and profound contempt for the intelligence of the people which has always been, as it will continue to be, the invariable source of all their faults and all their follies. Our struggle, we repeat, must not be now for mere victory. Of that, indeed, we cannot entertain a single possible doubt." The "Democratic Review," June, 1840, p. 475. found in the fact that it now, for the first time, disturbed the peace of the country.' The man who, in the struggle for Missouri, had played a certain part, could not write such nonsense in good faith. No matter how small his historical information might be, he had himself helped make the history of his country, and he was too wise to iinagine that the whole history of the slavery question could be wiped out by a silly assertion. He might, like so many others, be completely satisfied that the constitutional compromises on the slavery question could be a permanent arbitration of the matter. Hence he, perhaps, saw no serious danger to the country in the slavery question. But he evidently recognized how menacing a rock it was to all politicians, and the fear of striking against it himself dictated to him that absurd exaggeration. Decided as was his declaration that he wished to remain in the path hitherto followed, that is, to guide his bark by the compass of the slavocracy, yet he perceived, with solicitude, that the counter-current grew steadily stronger. It was precisely on this account that he asserted the contrary so emphatically. 1 "The last, perhaps the greatest, of the prominent sources of discord and disaster supposed to lurk in our political condition, was the institution of domestic slavery. Our forefathers were deeply impressed with the delicacy of this subject, and they treated it with a forbearance so evidently wise, that, in spite of every sinister foreboding, it never, until the present period, disturbed the tranquility of our common country. Such a result is sufficient evidence of the justice and of the patriotism of their course; it is evidence not to be mistaken, that an adherence to it can prevent all embarrassment from this, as well as every other anticipated cause of difficulty or danger. . . . If the agitation of this subject was intended to reach the stability of our institutions, enough has occurred to show that it has signally failed, and that in this, as in every other instance, the apprehensions of the timid and the hopes of the wicked for the destruction of our government, are again to be disappointed. . . . It will be ever thus. Such attempts at dangerous agitation may periodically return, but, with each, the object will be better understood." Statesm.'s Man., II, pp. 1157, 1158 |