This extraordinary increase indicates the almost boundless extent of the speculations in land which were going on during the latter part of this period in the United States. The progressive growth of the export of cotton is equally remarkable.

"This prodigious activity in speculation of every sort, both in land and merchandise, rose to a perfect fever in the course of 1836. Purchasers of lots keenly competed in the north for forests containing trees fit for the construction of dwellings,-in the south, for the marshes of the Mississippi,and in the west, for the far distant pasturages of the Ohio and Missouri. The extraordinary rise of several towns in these remote quarters has turned every head; and they speculate on the probable value of such and such localities for future cities, as if three or four Londons, as many Parises, and at least a dozen Liverpools, were speedily to spread in these desert abodes their streets, their houses, their wealth, their forests of masts. At New York alone, the Government has disposed of lots for 2,000,000 of inhabitants; at Orleans, for 1,000,000. They have assigned as localities for houses, cities, and streets, arid rocks or moving quagmires. In Louisiana, impassable morasses, the eternal abode of alligators; the swamps and bogs of New Orleans, which are covered with water to the depth of ten or twelve feet; and in the north, the bed of the Hudson submerged to the depth of thirty feet, have found numerous purchasers."-CHEVALIER, i. 416, 417, and ii. 163.

Such being the fever of speculation in land and merchandise in the United States for the last three years, such the indisputable necessity for banking establishments to aid the efforts of industry over its boundless surface, and such the benefits which the Bank of the United States had conferred upon the community, by placing on a more solid and secure foundation than heretofore the mighty agent of a paper currency; let us next attend to the measures which Government, simul et semel, was adopting, under the dictation and with the unanimous applause of the masses all over the Union, for the destruction of the Bank, and the eradication of a paper currency from the whole country. The views and wishes of a party there or elsewhere generally go beyond the actual measures which they are capable of carrying into

execution; and what these wishes are, and what ultimate objects the masses in America have in view, may best be learned from the conduct of their great apostle, General Jackson :

"The party of Administration," says Chevalier, "knowing that the Bank is unpopular with the masses, because they have felt its influence in thwarting their designs, roar out incessantly The Bank! The Bank!' The Opposition are mocking you, say they, when they call on you to support the Constitution and the laws; what do they care for the Constitution or the laws?-it is the Bank which they wish to save. War then, eternal war to the Bank! General Jackson, the hero of a double war, who cleared the country of English bayonets, wishes now to purify it from that great centre of tyranny and corruption. The Bank is still English influence under another form, which is striving to enslave you; the real question is, whether you shall be freemen or slaves of the golden calf. Despite all the hypocritical professions of the slaver of the Bank, never forget an instant, when going to the poll, that the sole question, the question of questions, is, 'Bank, or no Bank.' In truth, the real question which is about to be decided at the elections, is the question of the Bank-nevertheless, whose fault is it that the Opposition, in struggling for its support, is now obliged to invoke the shade of the Constitution?

"In truth, the chiefs of the democratic party have already become sensible that their first policy, which consisted in opposing the Local and Joint Stock Banks to the Banks of the United States, must in the end necessarily fail, and that they would all rally round that great establishment. It was evident that their reproaches, if well founded, were much more applicable to the Provincial Banks, because they have, in many cases, been the occasion of very serious losses; whereas the Bank of the United States has never occasioned to any person the loss of a farthing. After having hesitated a long while, the leaders of that party have adopted the bold resolution of declaring war against all Banks. Bank notes, say they, are nothing but miserable rags; the precious metals are the only solid foundation of real wealth. Gold is called Jackson-money. The national mint has been set to work with extraordinary activity to strike off gold pieces, half-eagles, and quarter-eagles. The chief journals, in the interest of General Jackson's party, pay all their workmen with gold; the warm friends of Administration keep nothing but gold in their pockets; and whenever you see a man with coin in his pocket, you may be sure he is a Jackson man. Lately the President went to his country-house of Hermitage, in Tennessee; all along the road he expended nothing but gold; the Globe, his acknowledged organ, took especial care to let it be known to the public; and, at a great banquet which the inhabitants of Nashville gave to him, he drank as a toast, 'Gold and silver, the only representatives of wealth recognised by the constitution.""-CHEVALIER, i. 240-242.

This extraordinary and otherwise inexplicable jealousy of the Bank, which, by combining solidity with prudence in its measures, has done so much to remove the inherent danger of a paper currency, when issuing from a multitude of independent sources, is in truth nothing but the form which democratic ambition takes in that country. All other distinctions are abolished; there is no aristocracy, no landed interest, no church, no national debt, no nobility, no sovereign ;

the majority, according to universal suffrage, and giving its votes by the ballot, decides everything. But the banks remain, and in them the masses see the germ of a future commercial aristocracy, in the power of giving or withholding discounts a source of influence which may sometimes counteract and interfere with their despotic propensities. Thence their universal exasperation at the banks, and their resolution to lay the axe to the root of this noble and beneficent establishment, even though in its fall it should involve all themselves in ruin.

"The bank is accused," says Chevalier, "of having intrigued for its own purposes, in order to get the question of the renewal of its charter brought on in the session of 1831-2; of having mingled in politics, in order to influence the election of President in 1832, and for that end augmented, by seven millions sterling, the amount of its discounts; finally, of having made use of its wealth to corrupt the press, and gain over the pamphlets and journals to its side.

"Assuredly, if it should happen that a European Government, on the strength of such reasons as these, without either investigation or proof, should overturn and ruin an institution which experience had proved to be essential to the existence of the country, a loud cry would, with reason, be raised against its injustice. If, in addition to this, it was interested in the establishment to the extent of L.1,700,000, many persons would tax such attacks not only with violence but absolute fatuity. But, in America, the numerical majority, which determines the elections, loudly applauds General Jackson's campaign against the Bank, with almost as much fervour as they did his glorious defence of New Orleans against the English. His military success, his probity, his firmness, amounting almost to obstinacy, have acquired for him an immense reputation. The Bank, on the contrary, notwithstanding the service it is daily doing to the country, is in the highest degree unpopular. "It is so, on account of the general animosity which exists among the masses to the banking system; on account of the inherent jealousy which, in a country of absolute equality and democratic jealousy, necessarily springs up at the institutions of opulence. In the United States, notwithstanding the customs and laws, there is still a sort of aristocracy founded on superior intelligence and wealth. That aristocracy, possibly a little supercilious to the multitude, has awakened the most violent hatred; and as the Bank naturally supports it, nothing more is requisite to explain the general antipathy which it has excited. Though the Bank has still the majority of the Senate on its side, the chances are accumulating against it. The masses in 1834 unanimously exclaimed, Hurrah for Jackson! without ever considering that in March, 1836, the Bank would die a natural death by the expiry of its charter, and that the object of their jealousy will disappear until experience has proved the impossibility of doing without it."-CHEVALIER, i. 67, 68.

The tirades of the press, intended to inflame the masses against the Bank, reminded M. Chevalier of the general delusions propagated at the commencement of the French Revolution:

"I have been much struck," says this staunch supporter of the democratic principle, "with the striking resemblance which the greater part of these

articles and journals directed against the Bank, bore to the revolutionary tirades of 1791 and 1792. There was the same declamatory style, the same appeal to popular passions, with this difference, that the charges against the Bank here are hollow, superficial and unfounded, while our subjects of complaint, fifty years ago, were too substantial. In general, the phantoms conjured up were a sort of fantastic pictures, which represented the moneyed aristocracy invading the kingdom, with an escort of seduction, corruption, and slavery. What do I say? Mr Biddle* was to be King. Amidst that deluge of writings and articles which decided the question with the numerical majority, there was hardly one which indicated serious study or a practical acquaintance with the subject."-Ibid. i. 80.

This question of questions, the Bank and cash payments, was the incessant subject of strife at the elections, and of debate in Congress during the sessions of 1832, 1833, and 1834. The democratic party, however, acquired a decided preponderance by the general election in the close of 1834.

"The fate of the Bank," says Chevalier, "was determined by the elections of 1834. In fifteen months, its charter will expire, and it will expire, to be renewed, however, shortly after, under another form, when a new series of commercial embarrassments shall have demonstrated that its assistance cannot be dispensed with. It is worthy of particular attention, that it will perish by the votes of the representatives of the very places which owe it most, New York and Pennsylvania. The blindness of Pennsylvania in particular is inexplicable. How is it possible to conceive the insanity with which the citizens of that state strive to dry up the source of all their greatness? for without the capitals of Philadelphia its fields would be desert wastes. Neither would there be the four hundred leagues of canals and railways, nor its roads, more numerous still, nor its innumerable wooden bridges, nor its manufactures, nor its mines. In truth, the same spirit of resistance to the moneyed aristocracy on both sides of the AtlanticNo Bank! Down with the Bank! No rag-money!'-is the cry in America which rules both the legislature and the executive; while at Paris, the bankers are held up to execration as the real aristocracy under the rule of the Citizen King."-CHEVALIER, i. 269, 271.

The Bank question caused the legislature of the United States to be divided precisely as the Reform Bill divided that of Great Britain. On the one side, the Senate, or Upper House, supported by all the wealth, education, and respectability of the country; on the other, the Executive, resting on the support of the masses, which have acquired a preponderance in the Lower House.

"The two Chambers of Congress," says Chevalier, 66 came to an open rupture on the great question of the withdrawal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States. The Senate declared, by a majority of 28 to 8, that the reasons assigned by the Finance Minister for that step were not sufficient; and by a majority of 26 to 20, that the conduct of the President in that affair was unconstitutional and illegal. Since the origin of the

*Cashier of the United States' Bank.

constitution, this is the first occasion on which the conduct of the first magistrate of the republic has been censured by the Senate. The Chamber of Representatives, on the other hand, has decided that the Bank of the United States should not have its charter renewed; that the public deposits should not be restored to it; and that they should be divided among the provincial banks. The first resolution passed by a majority of 132 to 82; the second by 118 to 103; the third by 117 to 105."-CHEVALIER, i. 125, 126.

To these copious extracts, so singularly illustrative of the causes of that terrible commercial crisis under which both America and Great Britain are now so grievously suffering, we shall add only one other-but it is a precious one-highly characteristic of the tendency of a blind, demagogue-led, urban constituency, with universal suffrage and vote by ballot, to rush headlong, and amidst transports, on measures calculated not merely remotely to injure their country, but instantly to send themselves to destruction. Ten thousand of the respectable, educated, and wealthy citizens of New York, embracing nineteen-twentieths of the capital of that great city, had petitioned General Jackson in favour of the Bank.

6

"General Jackson answered to the deputies, that they expressed the grievances of the capitalists, merchants, and courtiers of Wall Street and Pearl Street, but that Wall Street and Pearl Street were not the people.' Nevertheless, it may be asked, what would New York have been without Pearl Street and Wall Street? In the last fifty years, its population has increased ten, its riches a hundred fold. Assuredly this almost miraculous increase was not the work either of its soldiers or its advocates; the source of it is to be found in the boundless industrial establishments which have been brought into existence, nourished and sustained by the bankers of Wall Street and Pearl Street. It is very easy to declaim against the monied aristocracy; where would America, and New York especially, have been without them? If there is a country in the world where such declamation against the aristocracy of guineas is absurd, it is the United States.”— CHEVALIER, i. 109.

We have seen how strongly the opinion of all the wealth, education, and property of New York was expressed in favour of the Bank, to which they were well aware they were indebted for most of the blessings which they enjoyed; let us see what was the opinion of the masses, invested by universal suffrage and vote by ballot with a preponderating voice in the legislature, on the same subject. In the municipal elections of 1835, a prodigious effort was made by both parties; 36,000 persons voted in New York, and by a majority of 2700 the Jackson party carried

The Threadneedle Street and the Lombard Street of New York.