Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2). Benton Thomas Hart
but admitted that, in compliance with suggestions, they had written a letter to Mr. Biddle in their own names, making the inquiry; but without the sanction of the legislature, or the knowledge of the committees of which they were members. They did not explain the reason which induced them to take the initiative in so important business; and the belief took root that their good nature had yielded to an importunity from an invisible source, and that they had consented to give a private and bungling commencement to what must have a beginning, and which could not find it in any open or parliamentary form. It was truly a case in which the first step cost the difficulty. How to begin was the puzzle, and so to begin as to conceal the beginning, was the desideratum. The finger of the bank must not be seen in it, yet, without the touch of that finger, the movement could not begin. Without something from the Bank – without some request or application from it, it would have been gratuitous and impertinent, and might have been insulting and offensive, to have offered it a State charter. To apply openly for a charter was to incur a publicity which would be the defeat of the whole movement. The answer of Mr. Biddle to the two members, dexterously treating their private letter, obtained by solicitation, as a formal legislative application, surmounted the difficulty! and got the Bank before the legislature, where there were friends enough secretly prepared for the purpose to pass it through. The terms had been arranged with Mr. Biddle beforehand, so that there was nothing to be done but to vote. The principal item in these terms was the stipulation to pay the State the sum of $1,300,000, to be expended in works of internal improvements; and it was upon this slender connection with the subject that the whole charter referred itself to the committee of "Inland navigation and internal improvement;" – to take its place as a proviso to a bill entitled, "To repeal the State tax, and to continue the improvements of the State by railroads and canals;" – and to be no further indicated in the title to that act than what could be found under the addendum of that vague and flexible generality, "other purposes;" usually added to point attention to something not worth a specification.
Having mastered the first step – the one of greatest difficulty, if there is truth in the proverb – the remainder of the proceeding was easy and rapid, the bill, with its proviso, being reported, read a first, second, and third time, passed the House – sent to the Senate; read a first, second, and third time there, and passed – sent to the Governor and approved, and made a law of the land: and all in as little time as it usually requires to make an act for changing the name of a man or a county. To add to its titles to infamy, the repeal of the State tax which it assumed to make, took the air of a bamboozle, the tax being a temporary imposition, and to expire within a few days upon its own limitation. The distribution of the bonus took the aspect of a bribe to the people, being piddled out in driblets to the inhabitants of the counties: and, to stain the bill with the last suspicion, a strong lobby force from Philadelphia hung over its progress, and cheered it along with the affection and solicitude of parents for their offspring. Every circumstance of its enactment announced corruption – bribery in the members who passed the act, and an attempt to bribe the people by distributing the bonus among them: and the outburst of indignation throughout the State was vehement and universal. People met in masses to condemn the act, demand its repeal, to denounce the members who voted for it, and to call for investigation into the manner in which it passed. Of course, the legislature which passed it was in no haste to respond to these demands; but their successors were different. An election intervened; great changes of members took place; two-thirds of the new legislature demanded investigation, and resolved to have it. A committee was appointed, with the usual ample powers, and sat the usual length of time, and worked with the usual indefatigability, and made the usual voluminous report; and with the usual "lame and impotent conclusion." A mass of pregnant circumstances were collected, covering the whole case with black suspicion: but direct bribery was proved upon no one. Probably, the case of the Yazoo fraud is to be the last, as it was the first, in which a succeeding general assembly has fully and unqualifiedly condemned its predecessor for corruption.
The charter thus obtained was accepted: and, without the change of form or substance in any particular, the old bank moved on as if nothing had happened – as if the Congress charter was still in force – as if a corporate institution and all its affairs could be shifted by statute from one foundation to another; – as if a transmigration of corporate existence could be operated by legislative enactment, and the debtors, creditors, depositors, and stockholders in one bank changed, transformed, and constituted into debtors, creditors, depositors and stockholders in another. The illegality of the whole proceeding was as flagrant as it was corrupt – as scandalous as it was notorious – and could only find its motive in the consciousness of a condition in which detection adds infamy to ruin; and in which no infamy, to be incurred, can exceed that from which escape is sought. And yet it was this broken and rotten institution – this criminal committing crimes to escape from the detection of crimes – this "counterfeit presentment" of a defunct corporation – this addendum to a Pennsylvania railroad – this whited sepulchre filled with dead men's bones, thus bribed and smuggled through a local legislature – that was still able to set up for a power and a benefactor! still able to influence federal legislation – control other banks – deceive merchants and statesmen – excite a popular current in its favor – assume a guardianship over the public affairs, and actually dominate for months longer in the legislation and the business of the country. It is for the part she acted – the dominating part – in contriving the financial distress and the general suspension of the banks in 1837 – the last one which has afflicted our country, – that renders necessary and proper this notice of her corrupt transit through the General Assembly of the State of Pennsylvania.
CHAPTER VII.
EFFECTS OF THE SUSPENSION: GENERAL DERANGEMENT OF BUSINESS: SUPPRESSION AND RIDICULE OF THE SPECIE CURRENCY: SUBMISSION OF THE PEOPLE: CALL OF CONGRESS
A great disturbance of course took place in the business of the country, from the stoppage of the banks. Their agreement to receive each others' notes made these notes the sole currency of the country. It was a miserable substitute for gold and silver, falling far below these metals when measured against them, and very unequal to each other in different parts of the country. Those of the interior, and of the west, being unfit for payments in the great commercial Atlantic cities, were far below the standard of the notes of those cities, and suffered a heavy loss from difference of exchange, as it was called (although it was only the difference of depreciation,) in all remittances to those cities: – to which points the great payments tended. All this difference was considered a loss, and charged upon the mismanagement of the public affairs by the administration, although the clear effect of geographical position. Specie disappeared as a currency, being systematically suppressed. It became an article of merchandise, bought and sold like any other marketable commodity; and especially bought in quantities for exportation. Even metallic change disappeared, down to the lowest subdivision of the dollar. Its place was supplied by every conceivable variety of individual and corporation tickets – issued by some from a feeling of necessity; by others, as a means of small gains; by many, politically, as a means of exciting odium against the administration for having destroyed the currency. Fictitious and burlesque notes were issued with caricatures and grotesque pictures and devices, and reproachful sentences, entitled the "better currency:" and exhibited every where to excite contempt. They were sent in derision to all the friends of the specie circular, especially to him who had the credit (not untruly) of having been its prime mover – most of them plentifully sprinkled over with taunting expressions to give them a personal application: such as – "This is what you have brought the country to: " "the end of the experiment: " "the gold humbug exploded: " "is this what was promised us?" "behold the effects of tampering with the currency." The presidential mansion was infested, and almost polluted with these missives, usually made the cover of some vulgar taunt. Even gold and silver could not escape the attempted degradation – copper, brass, tin, iron pieces being struck in imitation of gold and silver coins – made ridiculous by figures and devices, usually the whole hog, and inscribed with taunting and reproachful expressions. Immense sums were expended in these derisory manufactures, extensively carried on, and universally distributed; and reduced to a system as a branch of party warfare, and intended to act on the thoughtless and ignorant through appeals to their eyes and passions. Nor were such means alone resorted to to inflame the multitude against the administration. The opposition press teemed with inflammatory publications. The