Society, Manners and Politics in the United States / Being a Series of Letters on North America

by Michel Chevalier

The silence of the principal speakers in Congress, who are almost all in the ranks of the Opposition, has no less contributed to swell its losses since the close of the session. The friends of the Administration in Congress, and more especially in the Senate, were beaten in debate, they felt it themselves, and their whole appearance was a formal confession of defeat; the whole party was disconcerted by this hesitation and embarrassment of the leaders. Since the 30th of June, the party, generals and soldiers, has had time to rally; they have restored their ranks beyond the reach of the fire of Messrs Clay, Calhoun, and Webster, and they have gained a victory, which four months ago they could not have hoped for. The revival of business in the country has also turned to the disadvantage of the Opposition. During the April elections in New York, the community was just recovering from a crisis, all classes had suffered and were still suffering. It was difficult to deny, that the distress had been caused by the President's attack on the Bank, in what he himself called an experiment. Commerce is now active again, the autumn business has been good, and every thing encourages the expectation of a not less favourable state of the spring-trade. General Jackson's experiment seems then to have succeeded; and a great number of persons who belong to the democratic party as their natural element, and who had quitted it in the spring, have very naturally fallen back into its ranks.

But it is proper to explain the real extent of this victory of the Administration; the Opposition has not actually been driven from its former positions, but the Jackson party has maintained the greater number of those it before occupied, and has particularly stood firm in Pennsylvania and New York. In a word, to judge by the elections that have already taken place, the House of Representatives in the session that begins at the close of 1835, will be, like the present House, composed of a majority of Jackson men. The Opposition, however, has gained rather than lost. It has carried the State of Maryland by a considerable majority, and has even gained the democratic State of Ohio, upon which it hardly calculated; ten Representatives out of nineteen from that State, belong to the Opposition, and although the Governor is of the Jackson party, the majority of the State legislature is Anti-Jackson, an important circumstance because the legislatures elect the Senators in Congress.

The elections in Pennsylvania, where the Opposition has lost two representatives, have surprised no one, but those in New York have disappointed all calculations. I know that some well-informed Jackson men, who had formed correct anticipations in regard to former elections, did not expect a majority of more than three or four hundred in the city, and, as I have before observed, they had one of 2,400. The Opposition thought itself able to contest the possession of the State, and relied upon carrying the city. It is certainly extraordinary, that the commercial interest should be beaten in the first commercial city in the New World, and such a result does no honour to the system which has caused it. The unexpected triumph of the Opposition in Ohio had redoubled their confidence in New York; they had celebrated with great display the junction of the young giant of the West with the Anti-Jackson forces. One of the magnificent steamboats belonging to the New York and Albany line, and called the Ohio, had been sent up the river with cannon, and the roar of its guns had been mingled with the shout of the towns and villages on the Hudson. The little frigate Constitution, the palladium of the opposition in New York,[AR] had been publicly paraded before the eyes of the multitude. A packet-boat had been sent up the canal from Albany, and made the new and flourishing towns, which at once give to and take from that great artery of the State, life, activity, and wealth, to resound with salvos of artillery in honor of Ohio. But now the cannon of the Opposition is silent, and that of Tammany Hall only is heard. The little frigate, which during the elections was hung up before the head-quarters of the Opposition, no longer displays the coloured lights with which her rigging was then illuminated. The streets of New York, which do not indeed require it, receive no additional light, except from the Jackson processions, which parade them nightly by torch-light.

The New York elections are not only important in their results, but also on account of the order which prevailed while they were going on. During the last six months, the spirit of anarchy had raised its head in the United States in such a manner as to inspire serious alarm, even among those not prone to be timid. You know what happened in New York during the April elections; several months later, in July, the city became the theatre of a series of outrages against the poor blacks, which were repeated several nights. In August the same excesses ware committed in Philadelphia, under the same pretext, and with no less audacity and perseverance: then came the brutal assault on the convent in Charlestown, when the retreat of peaceful nuns devoted to the education of young girls was attacked, plundered, and burnt down, without the Selectmen of the town having the power or the courage to make head against the rioters, and without the well-disposed citizens, taken by surprise by this act of savage intolerance, venturing to interfere. (See Note 17). Hardly a month since, there was also an incendiary conflagration at Philadelphia on the evening of the election; six houses were burnt, and the firemen were driven off by the rioters, as at Charlestown, by main force. The same evening, an event of a more grave character occurred; several muskets were discharged by some of the Opposition whom the mob had assailed with stones, several persons were wounded, and one or two killed. A week before, during the preparatory elections, an obscure and peaceable individual was killed by a stab with a dagger.

A repetition of these scenes of disorder was feared in New York; but nothing of the sort occurred. Nearly 36,000 voters exercised their right of suffrage without any disturbance, although both parties were highly excited. The merit of this wise conduct is wholly due to the people; the Common Council had, indeed, taken extraordinary measures for the preservation of the peace, but what is here considered extraordinary, hardly comes up to the ordinary police in Europe. If the multitude in the United States abstain from acts of violence, it is because they choose to do so; if they preserve order, it is because they love order. Three hundred constables more or less, in a city of 260,000 souls, like New York, could do nothing. Some persons, however, attribute this moderation of the democracy wholly to its confidence in success, and insist, that, if there had been any symptoms of the elections going the other way, the streets would have been thronged, as in April, by bodies of men armed with clubs.

The fate of the Bank has been decided by these elections. In fifteen months its charter expires, and the Bank will die, to be revived ere long under a new form, when a new series of commercial disasters, shall have proved to the conviction of the most incredulous, that they cannot get along without it. It is worthy of note, that it falls by the hands of the two States that owe it the most, New York and Pennsylvania. The blindness of Pennsylvania in particular is inexplicable. Who would expect this stupid fury in drying up the sources of its own prosperity? For without the Philadelphia capital, the interior districts of the State would yet be a wilderness; its one thousand miles of canals and railroads, its innumerable bridges, the finest wooden structures in the world, its numerous roads, its manufactures and mines which now enrich it, would not exist. Some persons assert, that Pennsylvania, which begins with perhaps the most enlightened and refined city in the United States, ends with a rural population of German origin, the most ignorant and stupid in North America. The conduct of the Pennsylvanians in regard to the Bank is not calculated to change the opinion of these severe judges.[AS] As for the New York electors, it may be supposed, that, if the seat of the Mother Bank were in their capital, the votes of the town and the State would have resulted very differently.

The only chance left for the Bank is, that the portion of the South which is under the influence of Virginia, should condescend to lend it a helping hand. Such an act of generous compassion on the part of the South is not probable, but it is not absolutely impossible. I have often been present at discussions between men of the South and the North, in which the latter have said to the former: "Without us you would be at the mercy of your slaves; it is our union with you which will prevent them from rising and cutting your throats." The Southerners answered: "We will take it upon ourselves to keep down our slaves; we shall have no need of your help against any attempts at insurrection for a long time to come. All we ask of you is, not to stir them up to revolt. But as for you, why you are yourselves overwhelmed by a flood of ultra-democracy. Your workmen give you the law. Before long you will be glad to get the aid of the South to restore the balance which your universal suffrage has destroyed." The South has now a fine opportunity to exercise in the North this moderating power of which it boasts the possession.

Frederic the Great, having gained a victory over the Imperialists just after the battle of Fontenoy, wrote to Louis XV.: "I have just paid the draft which your majesty drew on me at Fontenoy." General Jackson has honoured the bill drawn on him by the New York electors more promptly. A circular has been directed by the Secretary of the Treasury to the receivers of the public money, prohibiting the reception of certain drafts on the branch banks. These drafts were issued, merely because it was physically impossible for the president and cashier of the Mother Bank to sign five and ten dollar notes, fast enough to supply the place of those that were worn out or torn in the course of circulation. They have the same form with the Bank-notes, and pass like them, although the charter of the Bank makes no mention of them. This act of the Administration will, however, do no injury to the Bank; for if it is obliged to withdraw all these drafts, amounting to seven millions, from circulation, there is nothing to prevent its issuing bills to the same amount. The Bank is prepared for every event; the amount of its bills in circulation comprising the drafts on the branches, does not exceed 17 millions, and its means in specie, or other property that can be realised at a moment's warning, exceed 20 millions. It will merely be necessary for the president, Mr Biddle, and the cashier, Mr Jaudon, who were already crowded with business, to devote three or four hours a day to signing bills; for the branch drafts were only designed to relieve them from this duty. The order of the Secretary of the Treasury amounts, therefore, merely to a task inflicted on those gentlemen.

On both sides of the Atlantic, there is at present a reaction against the aristocracy of money. Whilst here the eternal chorus of No Bank! Down with the Bank! No Rag-Money! is forever displayed on the liberty-poles and the flags of the democracy, amongst us the bankers are denounced from the national tribune by our most able speakers. Do those who hope that industry will soon raise itself to political influence and dignity, deceive themselves then? Or are not rather the industrial classes themselves, and particularly those who are at their head, the financial class, yet unconscious of their future destiny, and too slow to shake off the bad habits which they contracted when the sword was law, and work was the lot of slaves and serfs? Do not these Princes of Industry pay too little regard to those lofty and noble sentiments which are well worth letters of nobility, and without which no supremacy could ever be sustained? To engage in public affairs with dignity, the hands must be clean, the public good must be prized above the money bags; and yet, such is the state of commercial dealings in our day, that, without inheriting a double share of generosity and patriotism, it is difficult to escape from them without becoming contaminated and callous. How many honorable men are there not in the industrial ranks, who groan over the customs to which they are obliged to conform, over the examples which they are obliged to imitate? The Bank of the United States must pay the penalty of the vices, which even in our day degrade commerce, but which are henceforth to belong only to history. It is punished for the sins of others, for this great institution has not itself deserved the reproach of cupidity; the services it has rendered to the country are immense; those which it has rendered itself, that is to say, its profits, have been moderate.