But it was not every member who could thus absolve himself from bank connection, favor, or dependence. The list of congressional borrowers, or retainers, was large—not less than fifty of the former at a time, and a score of the latter; and even after the failure of the bank and the assignment of its effects, and after all possible liquidations had been effected by taking property at "high valuation," allowing largely for "professional services," and liberal resorts to the "profit and loss" account, there remained many to be sued by the assignees to whom their notes were passed; and some of such early date as to be met by a plea of the statute of limitations in bar of the stale demand. Mr. Calhoun concluded with a "lift to the panic" in a reference to the "fearful crisis" in which we were involved—the dangers ahead to the liberties of the country—the perils of our institutions—and a hint at his permanent remedy—his panacea for all the diseases of the body politic—dissolution of the Union. He ended thus:
"We have (said Mr. C), arrived at a fearful crisis; things cannot long remain as they are. It behooves all who love their country, who have affection for their offspring, or who have any stake in our institutions, to pause and reflect. Confidence is daily withdrawing from the general government. Alienation is hourly going on. These will necessarily create a state of things inimical to the existence of our institutions, and, if not speedily arrested, convulsions must follow, and then comes dissolution or despotism; when a thick cloud will be thrown over the cause of liberty and the future prospects of our country."
CHAPTER CII.
PUBLIC DISTRESS.
From the moment of the removal of the deposits, it was seen that the plan of the Bank of the United States was to force their return, and with it a renewal of its charter, by operating on the business of the country and the alarms of the people. For this purpose, loans and accommodations were to cease at the mother bank and all its branches, and in all the local banks over which the national bank had control; and at the same time that discounts were stopped, curtailments were made; and all business men called on for the payment of all they owed, at the same time that all the usual sources of supply were stopped. This pressure was made to fall upon the business community, especially upon large establishments employing a great many operatives; so as to throw as many laboring people as possible out of employment. At the same time, politicians engaged in making panic, had what amounts they pleased, an instance of a loan of $100,000 to a single one of these agitators, being detected; and a loan of $1,100,000 to a broker, employed in making distress, and in relieving it in favored cases at a usury of two and a half per centum per month. In this manner, the business community was oppressed, and in all parts of the Union at the same time: the organization of the national bank, with branches in every State, and its control over local banks, being sufficient to enable it to have its policy carried into effect in all places, and at the same moment. The first step in this policy was to get up distress meetings—a thing easily done—and then to have these meetings properly officered and conducted. Men who had voted for Jackson, but now renounced him, were procured for president, vice-presidents, secretaries, and orators; distress orations were delivered; and, after sufficient exercise in that way, a memorial and a set of resolves, prepared for the occasion, were presented and adopted. After adoption, the old way of sending by the mail was discarded, and a deputation selected to proceed to Washington and make delivery of their lugubrious document. These memorials generally came in duplicate, to be presented, in both Houses at once, by a senator from the State and the representative from the district. These, on presenting the petition, delivered a distress harangue on its contents, often supported by two or three adjunct speakers, although there was a rule to forbid any thing being said on such occasions, except to make a brief statement of the contents. Now they were read in violation of the rule, and spoke upon in violation of the rule, and printed never to be read again, and referred to a committee, never more to be seen by it; and bound up in volumes to encumber the shelves of the public documents. Every morning, for three months, the presentation of these memorials, with speeches to enforce them, was the occupation of each House: all the memorials bearing the impress of the same mint, and the orations generally cast after the same pattern. These harangues generally gave, in the first place, some topographical or historical notice of the county or town from which it came—sometimes with a hint of its revolutionary services—then a description of the felicity which it enjoyed while the bank had the deposits; then the ruin which came upon it, at their loss; winding up usually with a great quantity of indignation against the man whose illegal and cruel conduct had occasioned such destruction upon their business. The meetings were sometimes held by young men; sometimes by old men; sometimes by the laboring, sometimes by the mercantile class; sometimes miscellaneous, and irrespective of party; and usually sprinkled over with a smart number of former Jackson-men, who had abjured him on account of this conduct to the bank. Some passages will be given from a few of these speeches, as specimens of the whole; the quantity of which contributed to swell the publication of the debates of that Congress to four large volumes of more than one thousand pages each. Thus, Mr. Tyler of Virginia, in presenting a memorial from Culpeper county, and hinting at the military character of the county, said:
"The county of Culpeper, as he had before observed, had been distinguished for its whiggism from the commencement of the Revolution; and, if it had not been the first to hoist the revolutionary banner, at the tap of the drum, they were second to but one county, and that was the good county of Hanover, which had expressed the same opinion with them on this all-important subject. He presented the memorial of these sons of the whigs of the Revolution, and asked that it might be read, referred to the appropriate committee, and printed."
Mr. Robbins of Rhode Island, in presenting memorials from the towns of Smithfield and Cumberland in that State:
"A small river runs through these towns, called Blackstone River; a narrow stream, of no great volume of water, but perennial and unfailing, and possessing great power from the frequency and greatness of its falls. Prior to 1791, this power had always run to waste, except here and there a saw mill or a grist mill, to supply the exigencies of a sparse neighborhood, and one inconsiderable forge. Since that period, from time to time, and from place to place, that power, instead of running to waste, has been applied to the use of propelling machinery, till the valley of that small river has become the Manchester of America. That power is so unlimited, that scarcely any limitation can be fixed to its capability of progressive increase in its application. That valley, in these towns, already has in it over thirty different establishments; it has in it two millions of fixed capital in those establishments; it has expended in it annually, in the wages of manual labor, five hundred thousand dollars; it has in it one hundred thousand spindles in operation. I should say it had—for one half of these spindles are already suspended, and the other half soon must be suspended, if the present state of things continues. On the bank of that river, the first cotton spindle was established in America. The invention of Arkwright, in 1791, escaped from the jealous prohibitions of England, and planted itself there. It was brought over by a Mr. Slater, who had been a laboring manufacturer in England, but who was not a machinist. He brought it over, not in models, but in his own mind, and fortunately he was blessed with a mind capacious of such things, and which by its fair fruits, has made him a man of immense fortune, and one of the greatest benefactors to his adopted country. There he made the first essays that laid the foundation of that system which has spread so far and wide in this country, and risen to such a height that it makes a demand annually for two hundred and fifty thousand bales of cotton—about one fourth of all the cotton crop of all our cotton-growing States; makes for those States, for their staple, the best market in the world, except that of England: it was rapidly becoming to them the best market in the world, not excepting that of England; still better, it was rapidly becoming for them a market to weigh down and preponderate in the scale against all the other markets of the world taken together. Now, all those prospects are blasted by one breath of the Executive administration of this country. Now every thing in that valley, every thing in possession, every thing in prospect, is tottering to its fall. One half of those one hundred thousand spindles are, as I before stated, already stopped; the other half are still continued, but at a loss to the owners, and purely from charity to the laborers; but this charity has its limit; and regard to their own safety will soon constrain them to stop the other half. Five months ago, had one travelled through that valley and witnessed the scenes then displayed there—their numerous and dense population, all industrious, and thriving, and contented—had heard the busy hum of industry in their hours of labor—the notes of joy in their hours of relaxation—had seen the plenty of their tables, the comforts of their firesides—had, in a word, seen in every countenance the content of every heart; and if that same person should travel through the same valley hereafter, and should find it then deserted, and desolate, and silent as the valley of death, and covered over with the solitary and mouldering ruins of those numerous establishments, he would say, 'Surely the hand of the ruthless destroyer has been here!' Now, if the present state of things is to be continued, as surely as blood follows the knife that has been plunged to the heart, and death ensues, so surely that change there is to take place; and he who ought to have been their guardian angel, will have been that ruthless destroyer."
And thus Mr. Webster, in presenting a memorial from Franklin county, in the State of Pennsylvania: