charter the Bank in despite of the Executive veto.

An enormous

but gradual increase of its accommodations was every where made, in order that as many individuals as possible might be brought into dependence. After these preparations had been completed, Congress was petitioned in 1832, four years in advance of the expiration of the charter, and on the eve of the Presidential election, to re-charter the Bank. The bill for that purpose was carried through both Houses under the personal superintendence of Mr. Biddle, but received the veto of the President,-upon which every expedient which influence, intimidation or bribery could bring into operation. was used to defeat the re-election of the President. The expansions and contractions of the currency employed for this purpose should of course be attributed to Executive interference, since, had the President evinced the same docility with many others, these fluctuations which caused so much individual suffering would not have been necessary. They proved insufficient. Gen. Jackson was reelected by a greatly increased vote. He subsequently directed, for reasons which he believed to be sufficient, that the public deposites, then amounting to a comparatively small sum, should be removed from the Bank, in pursuance of an express power contained in the charter. For the purpose of compelling Congress to direct their restoration, another contraction so severe was produced by the Bank as to throw most of the other banks and the individuals dependent on them into deep consternation and embarassment. Was not this distress, then, clearly produced by the tyranny of the Government? Ought the Bank of the United States to be regarded in any other light than as the unwilling instrument used by the President to harass and ruin the merchants and speculators? But unfortunately these measures wholly failed. The Bank then in the course of only six months increased its accommodations more than twenty millions of dollars, and encouraged the other banks to a corresponding expansion. By producing a general rise of prices, from the abundance of paper currency in circulation, a multitude of preposterous speculations were inflated in every section of the Union, as well as a vast influx of importations induced from abroad. The immense amount of public lands purchased on speculation, and the duties accruing upon importations, brought into the banks in which the public money was deposited, according to the practice introduced into our political system by Hamilton, a great surplus revenue, which Congress, contrary to the advice of the President, directed to be divided among the States. This division compelled the banks to curtail their operations. Thousands upon thousands of individ uals, whose expectations of profit were founded upon the increase of the previous expansion, and consequent accelerated rise of prices, found themselves at once, not only deprived of their anticipated fortunes, but of the property they had before possessed, in comply

ing with the calls of the banks for the repayment of their accommodations. Who can doubt but they were ruined by the Executive, when it is remembered that this division of the deposites in banks among the States was the favorite measure of the supporters of the Bank of the United States, and, like the present project of Mr. Carey, was to produce universal steadiness and security? Besides, to protect the banks, and through them their debtors from the common destruction in which the rage of gambling threatened to involve them, the President had endeavoured to prevent them from hazarding the public money, by ordering a strict compliance with the law which requires payment for public lands to be made in cash instead of bank credits as had been the practice under the government of the Bank of the United States. Was not this a flagitious interference by the Executive? Is it not justly called by the highest authority "tampering with the currency?" Who can doubt but the previous expansion was produced by the benevolent managers of the Bank of the United States, wholly from a patriotic desire to oblige their fellow citizens? And what inhumanity was manifested in endeavouring to enforce the long established laws of the land!

But unhappily, while the banks of this country were carrying on this prodigious expansion of paper currency and producing universal wealth and prosperity, the Bank of England was contracting its issues. To such a degree of scarcity was currency brought in the English market that the prices of our principal staples were suddenly reduced to less than one half of their former rates. The previous enormous importations under this state of things soon produced a large balance against this country which was required to be paid, not in paper currency, but in gold and silver-the only currency recognized in commercial transactions between nations. This produced a run for specie upon the banks of New York. They were compelled to suspend payments, and were immediately followed by most of the banks throughout the country. The credit system was at once plunged into the greatest jeopardy. Had it not been for the ingenious expedient of issuing the defunct notes of the former Bank which nobody could be compelled to redeem, the Bank of the United States must have forfeited its new charter from the State of Pennsylvania!

We have carefully examined Mr. Carey's publications for the purpose of finding evidence that this contraction of the Bank of England, which produced such disastrous consequences, was caused by the interference of our Executive with the Government of England. Unfortunately he has omitted to specify that important

He has assigned the importation of the foreign indemnities in gold, as the occasion of this visitation upon our banks, but unluckily the indemnities were not brought from England, and the bulk of those received from France and Naples were not remitted

until after the adoption of its restrictive measures by the Bank of England. Notwithstanding this slight discrepancy between cause and effect, how many of Mr. Carey's readers will doubt but the suspension of specie payments was designedly brought about by the Executive for the purpose of establishing "one currency for the Government and another for the people," by means of "Sub-Treasuries, Receivers General, and Government paper?"

Having thus endeavoured briefly and of course imperfectly to supply the obvious chasm in the additional illustrations given in the reply, of the disastrous consequences of the interference of Government with paper currency, we leave to our readers to judge whether the ruinous fluctuations which within the last twenty years have swept away the fortunes and prospects of so many hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens, have not been wholly owing to the imitation by our Government of the practices of the arbitrary monarchs of Europe.

The distinction on which the new scheme of Mr. Carey wholly rests that excessive issues of paper currency are only destructive under a monarchical form of government, while steadiness and security are only disturbed in a republic by the interference of the Executive-is worthy of the doctrines it is brought to support. There is undoubtedly a wide difference in the practical operation of a government which employs its authority and power in defrauding and oppressing its subjects, and the theory of self-governmen* which prevails in this country. But there can be no essential dif. ference between them as to the proper medium of commercial interchange. The necessity for that healthy circulation which sustains industry by protecting its rewards, while its debasement and corruption paralyze the energy of every pursuit, must be the same under any system of government which is entitled to the name It is quite as ridiculous to allege that a similar paper currency is beneficial under a popular form of government, and destructive under a monarchy, as it would be to contend that the same kind of diet will be salutary to the physical system in one and poisonous in the other. Mr. Carey not only admits, but produces several examples in addition to those we had adduced, to show, that paper currency issued and received as money under the sanction of a monarchical government, whether through the medium of banks or otherwise, is a palpable cheat, and has invariably led to the impoverishment of the many for the aggrandizement of the few. But he furnishes no explanation of the mode by which these evils resulting from its uses, are to be avoided under a form of government like ours. In expatiating in vague and general terms upon the steadiness and security which he assumes will be derived from the general issue and receipt of paper currency by "the whole people," in a country where they are the controlling power, he has entirely

overlooked the great principle of sovereignty which places them in the same position with regard to our institutions as the most absolute monarch within his dominions. Neither the continental paper issued by this country during the Revolutionary struggle, nor the Assignats of France received any increased worth from being issued by the authority of the people and for their benefit. Like every experiment made upon currency without intrinsic and universal value, from the foundation of the world-whether issued by kings or by people-by banks or by individuals-whether received for public taxes or not—whenever the amount of the continental paper or assignats was expanded beyond the aggregate of the quantity of gold and silver currency which the necessities of the people would have required for commercial interchange, had there been no paper in circulation, they inevitably depreciated. Such is the universal effect of the operation of the great laws of trade. For this reason it has been always found impossible to prevent paper currency, costing nothing, and consequently prone to excess, from becoming an instrument of fraud upon the industrious and producing classes.Paper currency is no doubt convenient to a certain extent to the mercantile classes, but any use of paper currency is wholly a question between convenience on the one hand, and safety to the highest interests of the community on the other.

This important question has been conclusively settled by Mr. Carey in his reply to our Article. By empowering "the whole people" to manufacture paper currency which shall be received in all payments, its quality as a measure of value must be destroyed. This quality alone enables commercial men to employ it as a substitute for actual money. To enable every individual in the community to establish a measure of value for himself is therefore precisely the great improvement which according to Shakspeare, Jack Cade promised to his misguided followers. "There shall be no more money," was the rallying cry put into the mouth of Cade by the great painter of human motives, as calculated to produce the most powerful effect upon a desperate band of disorganizers. We do not wish, however, to be understood as receiving the account of the poet as authority as to the facts of the attempted reform of the villeinage of the feudal system which was set on foot by popular desperation in England, France and the Netherlands at about the same period. But for the purpose of illustrating the most efficient springs of human action, we may, with the Duke of Marlborough, cite Shakspeare as the best writer of English history. Had the felicitous invention of paper currency as the means of overthrowing the established institutions of society, been introduced into England in his day, the incentives for the destruction of property put into the mouth of Cade would doubtless have been similar to those used by Mr. Carey for the increase of production and the diffusion of universal plenty without labor.

The process by which Mr. Carey seems to have arrived at this final consummation of practical agrarianism, furnishes the American people a most important lesson, which we hope will be hereafter and constantly borne in the recollection of all who have witnessed the disordered condition of the currency and the exchanges during the last two years. In his famous letter of the 5th of April last, Mr. Biddle expressed his firm determination to remain behind his cotton bags, and to prevent all the banks in the country from resuming specie payments, "until the enemy should be driven from the country"-meaning in plain language that he would continue. to in..ict distress upon the people and involve their productive interests in the manifold embarassments occasioned by the want of a sound currency, until our citizens should be compelled to elect rulers who were ready to recharter his bank as the means of relief, and invest it with the absolute control of the public finances. As this avowal, for the character of which we find some difficulty in selecting a suitable epithet, created no little consternation among some of the firmest but honest supporters of the Bank, the publication of Mr. Carey which occasioned our former Article appeared, vindicating the course of the banks for refusing to fulfil their solemn obligations by the redemption of their issues; and demonstrating by his ordinary mathematical formulas, that confidence alone, and not specie, was the true basis of paper currency. This "confidence" he asserted to be essential to enable the banks to resume their proper functions towards the community. But the main element of this "confidence" he maintained to be the countenance and support of the Government towards the banks. Until the present Administration should be expelled from power, and a new one elected by the people who would adopt the paper currency of the banks as the universal measure of value, he not only earnestly contended, but demonstrated in his peculiar manner, that the depreciation of bank paper must be continued, and the activity and prosperity of the country remain paralyzed. It was this torrent of wholesale deception which we undertook to turn into its proper channel in our former article.

Not finding it precisely convenient to encounter the positions taken in that Article, derived from the universal experience of the employment of bank currency by the great governments of Earope, Mr. Carey in the reply turns suddenly round and jumps into the identical channel of argument marked out by us, and affects to coincide entirely with our views of the destructive influence of paper currency under monarchical governments. Though the whole drift and design of his former publication was to shew the necessity of the interposition of our Government to sustain the currency of the banks by receiving it, however depreciated, in all public payments, he now discovers that it is the arbitrary interference of