Whenever the time shall arrive, as I would fain persuade myself it must, in which the public shall feel such concern in the affairs of Quodlibet as to demand of me a full disclosure of the treasures of my MSS., I shall greatly delight in spreading before it many particulars which I have collected, having reference to the private concernments and domestic transactions of our people and their sundry ways in regard to many matters which do not fall within the scope of my present undertaking. For, truly, the history of Quodlibet will be found, when impartially narrated, to yield a plentiful fruitage of ethical, moral and social instruction, as well as political—to which latter aspect are my labors at this time confined.
In conformity with my plan, and being desirous to hasten forward to a more modern epoch in these annals, I pass over the intervening space, and bring my reader almost a year in advance of the events narrated in the last chapter.
It was now approaching the fifth year of the Removal:—the long session of Congress had closed in July, 1838. The Hon. Middleton Flam had once more returned to his constituents, and temporarily mingled in the walks of private life. Greatly was his return desiderated at this epoch. We had got all wrong—we lacked information—we wanted this great man's advice.
The split at this time—if I may use a metaphor—was green and wide; or, in plainer language, our dissensions ran high. If the men might be said to be at sixes and sevens, the women were twice as bad—they were at twelves and fourteens. Mrs. Ferret had become inveterate, and headed a party of Feminine True Grits; Susan Barndollar, who had a temper of her own, of course became inveterate too, and, as Barndollar & Hardbottle were accounted a rich firm, she headed, or strove to do so, a party of Feminine Mandarins. Hester Hardbottle, under a similar impulse, took command of the Female Middlings. Thus marshaled, the New-Light women manifested a very high degree of political corruscation, and kept the Borough in perpetual hot water. Every tea-party was a scalding concern, and it was lamentable to see what a foothold the serpent of discord had gained in our little Eden of Quodlibet.
The men were not so ferocious; in part because they had their business to look after; but chiefly, because the stronger, when they failed in argument, could drub the weaker—and that drubbing system is a great moderator of political opinions. The women, having neither of these motives to keep quiet, took the bits in their mouths and ran off as fast as, and whenever, they chose.
Theodore Fog's conduct in the Legislature, during the past winter, had in some degree rather weakened the cause of his friends. He had disappointed them—although they were unwilling publicly to allow as much—on two points: First, because he had not got them all provided with offices, as he had, it appeared, secretly promised; but, on the contrary, came home without having accomplished that desirable object for a single individual of the party; and, secondly, because he had been exceedingly irregular in his habits during the whole session, and had consequently made but four speeches, of three hours each, during the winter, when it was confidently expected that he would have made at least thirty-four, and have completely silenced the opposition. The irregularity of his habits they could forgive; but the matter of the offices sunk deep in their hearts—they began to suspect his Democracy.
A change had also taken place in the business affairs of Quodlibet. All improvements had ceased:—many persons were out of employment; industry was declining; trade was at a low ebb; the mechanics were grumbling, and four mercantile houses had failed. Immediately after the suspension Nicodemus Handy had issued a great amount of small notes. Dr. Thomas G. Winkelman, actuated by patriotic emotions, also issued a batch payable in soda-water, soap, or physic. Zachary Younghusband, the tinplate-worker and postmaster, reflecting on the crisis, and being determined to contribute his mite toward the regulation of the currency, followed the example of Dr. Winkelman, and put out a ream, redeemable in Copperplate Bank notes when presented to the amount of five dollars at his tinplate shop. Sim Travers, who had a drinking shed at the lower end of the canal basin, with equal public spirit, uttered his paper in fips, "Good for a Drink." Many others imitated these precedents, whereby it fell out that no part of the Union was better supplied with a currency than Quodlibet.
Still the Borough languished and pined under a gradual decay of its prosperity; and it was long before our wise men could ascertain the real source of this decline. The cause was at last discovered. We are indebted for its development to the astuteness of our distinguished representative. There were eight of the principal mercantile houses of the Borough which had been established by Whigs: in fact, throwing out Barndollar & Hardbottle, all the merchants of Quodlibet might be said to be opposed to the administration. It was very apparent, after the Hon. Middleton Flam drew the attention of the club to this fact, that these houses had combined to produce an utter prostration of business, solely for political effect, and that the malevolence of four of the most thriving among them had gone so far as even to render themselves bankrupt, and to break up, for no earthly purpose but that of making the administration unpopular. "This is a specimen of the gratitude," said Mr. Flam, speaking with great emotion upon the subject, "this is the gratitude of these commercial vultures—(he always called them commercial vultures after the Suspension, and when speaking to the people)—for all the manifold favors and bounties which, for five years past, the government has been so assiduously heaping upon their heads. This is their acknowledgment of the extraordinary kindness shown them by the Secretary of the Treasury when he directed our bank to lend these vipers the public money! Biddle and the Barings are at the bottom of this conspiracy; and the merchants of the United States, yes, and the manufacturers and all the moneyed men, would gladly beggar themselves and their families rather than allow us to regulate their currency and make them the happiest people on earth. What unparalleled perfidy!"
After this, the New Lights of course became indignant against the merchants, and held them up, as they deserved, to public execration, as the authors of all our misfortunes. From Quodlibet, this sentiment became general among the New-Light Democrats everywhere. Mr. Van Buren caught the idea; the Globe expatiated upon it; the Stump rang with it; and it soon took its place as one of the cardinal maxims in the New-Light creed. Such is the supremacy of one commanding intellect!
Never was there a topic equal to this in the elections. "The merchants," Theodore Fog very pertinently remarked, "are a first-rate subject for a stump speech: they are a monstrous little knot of fellows, anyhow—and, comparatively speaking, of no sort of account, in the way of voting. Having the handling of a good deal of cash, and plenty to do in the way of giving and taking of promissory notes, you can slap upon them the argument of The Money Power with tremendous effect: you can tickle them with the whip of Aristocracy in perfection; and you can run 'em down with the text of the money-changers in the Temple, and all that sort of thing, to a nicety. Besides, there are so few of them that either can make a speech before the people, or, if they can, will take the trouble to follow a man about for that purpose, that you are not likely to be pestered with their replies. Capital animals for an opposition, they take a lathering so quiet! Then, sir, for every one merchant you lay upon his back, you gain five True Grits to your side. I've studied that out. Our people, I mean the New Lights, can be made to hate a merchant like snakes—because if he does get on well with his business, and makes a little fortune, we can call him a Rag Baron, a Ruffle Shirt, a Scrub Aristocrat,—and that's equal to sending him to the deserts of Arabia: and if he fails, as the greater part of the poor devils do, we can get up a still worse cry against him for turning the humble and honest laborer out of employment, grinding the faces of the poor, depriving the widow and the orphan of their bread, and coining the sweat of the Bone and Sinew's brow to feed Usurers, Brokers, and Shavers. And, by-the-by, these arguments are quite good against manufacturers and Whig master-mechanics. But a merchant, sir, can't hold up his head one moment before them. Every which way, sir, he's a prime scape-goat. Then, sir, when we want to make an EXPERIMENT,—why, of course, we go to the merchants. Here's all this currency business, especially the tail of it, the Sub-Treasury—fine thing to stir up the people with—sounds well in theory, though a little mischievous in practice. Well, sir, we test it on the merchants: we get the popularity, they get the damage. The approved philosophical mode to try a dangerous experiment, is to attempt it on a cat:—sir, The Merchants are our cats."