Failures begin to be frequent in the United States, particularly in New
York and Pennsylvania; the great commercial and manufacturing houses
are shaking. Meanwhile the Senators and Representatives in Congress
are making speeches on the crisis, its causes, and consequences. Three
months have already been taken up in discussing the question, whether
the Secretary of the Treasury had or had not the right to withdraw the
public deposits from the vaults of the Bank, without that institution
having given any just cause of complaint, and merely because it was
strongly suspected of aristocratical tendencies. The resolutions which
have given rise to these debates, have been referred by the Senate to
the Committee on Finance, and by the House to the Committee of Ways
and Means. Debates will rise on the reports of these committees, on
petitions and memorials, and incidental matters, and, I am told, will
last two or three months longer. This slowness is at first glance
difficult to be understood, among a people, which, above all things,
strives to save time, and which is so much given to haste and despatch,
that its most suitable emblem would be a locomotive engine or a
steamboat, just as the Centaurs were anciently confounded with their
horses. From all the large towns of the North, committees appointed
by great public meetings, bring to Washington memorials signed by
thousands, calling for prompt and efficient measures to put an end to
the crisis. On the other hand, the partisans of the Administration
find fault with the prolixity of the legislators. The calmness, or
rather phlegm, which the Americans have inherited from their English
ancestors, is kept undisturbed in both houses of Congress, and the
solemn debate goes on. One speaker for example, Mr Benton, occupied
four sessions, four whole days, with his speech, which led Mr Calhoun
to observe, that the Senator from Missouri took up more time in
expressing his opinion on a single fact, than the French people had
done in achieving a revolution. But these interminable delays ought not
to be too lightly condemned, and for myself I only shrug my shoulders,
when I hear some impatient individuals asserting that Congress would be
more expeditious, were it not for the eight dollars a day which they
receive during the session. This delay may seem irreconcileable with
one of the distinctive traits of the American character, but in reality
is imperiously demanded by the form and spirit of the government, by
the institutions and political habits of the country.
The general discussion in Congress has no other object than to open
a full and free public inquest, which enables each and all to make
up an opinion. It gives rise to a discussion of the question by the
innumerable journals in the United States (where there are 1200
political newspapers), by the twentyfour legislatures, each composed of
two houses, and by the public meetings in the cities and towns. It is
an animated exchange of arguments of every calibre and every degree,
of contradictory resolutions, mixed up with applauses and hisses, of
exaggerated eulogies and brutal invectives. A stranger, who finds
himself suddenly thrown into the midst of this hubbub, is confounded
and stupefied; he seems to himself to be present in the primeval or the
final chaos, or at least at the general breaking up of the Union. But
after a certain time some gleams of light break forth from these thick
clouds, from the bosom of this confusion,--gleams, which the good
sense of the people hails with joy, and which light up the Congress.
We see here the realization of the _Forum_ on an immense scale, the
_Forum_ with its tumult, its cries, its pasquinades, but also with
its sure instincts, and its flashes of native and untaught genius. It
is a spectacle, in its details, occasionally prosaic and repulsive,
but, as a whole, imposing as the troubled ocean. In a country like
this, it is impossible to avoid these delays; first, because it takes
a long time to interchange words between the frontiers of Canada and
the Gulf of Mexico, and secondly, because nothing is so dangerous as
precipitation in a _Forum_, whether it only covers the narrow space
between the _Rostra_ and the Tarpeian Rock, or extends from Lake
Champlain to the mouth of the Mississippi, and from the Illinois to the
Cape of Florida. Unfortunately the session in the _Forum_ lasts longer
than usual this time. The demagogues have set the popular passions
in violent agitation; the sovereign people has allowed itself to be
magnetised by its flatterers, and it will require some time to be able
to shake off the trance. The healing beam, which will fix the gaze of
the multitude and dissipate the charm that envelopes them, has not yet
broke forth from the East, or from the West; meanwhile the merchants
and manufacturers, who are stretched upon the coals, writhe in vain;
there is no answer to their cries.
The Bank, meantime, disappears from sight and keeps silence; it
continues to attend to its own business, and prudently confines itself
to that alone. Its best policy is to avoid as much as possible making
itself the subject of common talk. The demagogues have raised such a
cry of monopoly and aristocracy, that the people have come to believe
the Bank a colossus of aristocracy, a prop of monopoly. These words
_monopoly_ and _aristocracy_ are here, what the word _Jesuits_ was in
France a few years ago; if the enemies of any institution can write
on its back this kind of _abracadabra_, it is pointed at, hooted
at, and hissed at by the multitude. Such is the magic power of these
words, that speculators employ them on all occasions as charms to draw
customers. For example, at the head of the advertisements of steamboats
you read in staring characters: NO MONOPOLY!!! It is pitiful to say
that the Bank of the United States has a monopoly, when there are no
less than five hundred other banks in the country; by this course of
reasoning one might convict the sun of enjoying a monopoly of light.
And yet the multitude has believed it, and believes it still. Now the
best policy for those against whom such a storm of unpopularity is
raised, is to run for port, as the sailors do in a gale of wind. The
Bank has twice attempted to strike a blow, by taking advantage of the
mistakes of its enemies, and both times the stroke has recoiled on
itself.
The first time, the subject of dispute was a draft on the French
government, which was sold to the Bank last year by the Federal
government, and which France refused to pay; the draft was, therefore,
protested, and then paid by the correspondent of the Bank in Paris in
honour of the endorser. In this affair the Executive of the United
States committed two faults: 1. It was an act of indiscretion to draw
on the French government, before the Chambers had made the necessary
appropriation for paying the stipulated indemnity; 2. Instead of
drawing on the French government by a bill of exchange, and selling
the bill to the Bank, without knowing whether it would be accepted,
the Executive would have conducted itself with more propriety towards
France, towards the Bank, and towards itself, if it had authorized
the Bank to receive the moneys paid by the French government, in the
capacity of its agent or attorney. By the commercial practice of all
countries, and of this in particular, the Bank had a right to damages,
and it put in its claim. Its object in taking this step, was much
more to expose the errors of the Executive, than to pocket the sum of
50,000 or 80,000 dollars. But its adversaries immediately raised the
cry, that the Bank was not contented with exacting enormous sums from
the sweat of the people to the profit of the stockholders, (observe
that the dividends of the Bank are moderate, compared with those of
other banking companies in the country, and that the Federal government
is itself the largest share-holder); but that it was now attempting,
by petty chicanery, to extort a portion of the public revenue, and to
bury the _people's money in Biddle's pockets_. To this reasoning, and
it passes for demonstration, the multitude answered by imprecations
against monopoly and the moneyed aristocracy, and by renewed shouts of
HURRAH FOR JACKSON!
A few days since we witnessed another episode of this kind. The Bank
is charged, by act of Congress, with the duty of paying the pensions
of the old soldiers of the revolution. It performs the service
gratuitously, and it is notoriously a troublesome one. It has received
several sums of money for this object, and at this moment has about
500,000 dollars in its vaults, intended for the next payments. The
Administration, desirous of transferring this agency from the Bank,
has demanded the funds, books, and papers connected with it. The Bank
replied, that it has been made the depository of this trust by act
of Congress, and that it cannot, ought not, and will not surrender
it, unless in obedience to an act of Congress. The Bank was right;
the refusal was founded in justice; but mark the consequences. Its
adversaries express the greatest sympathy for these illustrious
relics of the revolution, whom the arrogance of the Bank, as they
say, is about to plunge, at the close of their career, into the most
dreadful misery; they pour forth the most pathetic lamentations over
these glorious defenders of the country, whom a _money-corporation_
is about to strip of the provision made for their declining years by
the nation's gratitude. You may imagine all the noisy arguments and
patriotic harangues, that can be delivered on this text. On the 4th
of February, the President sent a message to Congress in the same
strain. All this is mere declamation, of the most common-place and
the most hypocritical kind; for who will prevent the deliverers of
America from duly receiving their pensions, except those who shall
refuse them drafts on the Bank, which the Bank would pay at once? But
a people under fascination is not influenced by reason, and it is at
this moment believed by the multitude that the Bank has determined to
kill the noble veterans of Independence by hunger. Once more, then,
anathemas against monopoly, hatred to the moneyed aristocracy! HURRAH
FOR JACKSON! JACKSON FOREVER!
Whenever, therefore, the Bank has allowed itself to be drawn into a
conflict, which is the enemy's country, it is pronounced to be in the
wrong, though it were ten times right. On the contrary, when it has
kept to its discounts and credits, it has always been able, without
opening its mouth, to belie the charges of its enemies, who not only
impute to it the atrocious crime of being suspected of aristocracy and
monopoly, but attribute to it now the public distress, of which they
denied the existence a few months ago, and of which they are themselves
the authors. Very lately the Bank came to the relief of several
local banks, which were in danger of failing, and a few days since
it opened its coffers liberally to Allen & Co., one of the principal
houses in the country, who, although having a capital much beyond the
amount of their debts, were obliged, by the pressure of the times, to
suspend payments; the failure of that house, which has no less than
24 branches, would have involved hundreds of others. This is the only
way in which the Bank should assume the offensive; such acts, without
a word of comment, would secure it the favour and the support of all
impartial and enlightened men, and the gratitude of the commercial
interest, much more completely than the most eloquent protests against
the measures of this or that secretary, or the most ingenious and able
defence of itself.
I am more and more convinced that the United States will reap advantage
from this crisis; sooner or later the reform of the banking system must
result from it. Very probably, the National Bank, if it is maintained,
and the local banks, will hereafter be less absolutely separated from
the Federal and State governments; that is to say, that the Federal
and local governments will assume the control of the Banks, and
consequently the banks will become a part of the governments. In this
way many of the abuses of the banking system will be reformed, and the
legitimate and just influence of the banks will be strengthened. It
would be easy to cite numerous facts, which go to prove the tendency
towards this result; thus in some of the States, the Legislatures
have established, or are occupied in establishing banks, in which the
State is a share-holder to the amount of one half or two fifths of
the capital, appoints a certain number of the directors, and reserves
to itself an important control over the operations. There are some
States, as for example, Illinois, in which every other kind of bank is
expressly forbidden by the constitution.
Republican publicists acknowledge only three classes of powers,
the executive, legislative, and judicial; but it will soon be seen
in the United States, that there is also a financial power, or at
least the banks will form a branch of government quite as efficient
as either of the others. The Bank of the United States is more
essential to the prosperity of the country than the Executive, as now
organized. The latter, conducts a little diplomatic intercourse,
well or ill, with the European powers, nominates and removes some
unimportant functionaries, manoeuvres an army of 6,000 men in the
western wilderness, adds now and then some sticks of timber to the
dozen ships of war that are on the stocks at Portsmouth, Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, Washington, Norfolk, and Pensacola. All this
might actually cease to be done without endangering the safety of
the country, and without seriously wounding its prosperity, that is,
its industry. But take from the country its institutions for the
maintenance of credit, or only that which controls and regulates all
the others, the Bank of the United States, and you plunge it into a
commercial anarchy which would finally result in political anarchy.
The word politics cannot have the same meaning in the United States
as in Europe. The United States, are not engaged, like the nations of
Europe, in territorial combinations and the preservation of the balance
of a continent, nor are they entangled in treaties of Westphalia or
Vienna. They are free from all those difficulties, which in Europe
arise from a difference of origin or religion, or from the conflict
between rival pretensions, between old interests and new interests.
They have no neighbour, which excites their suspicions. The policy of
the United States consists in the extension of their commerce, and the
occupation by agriculture of the vast domain, which nature has given
them; in these points is involved the great mass of their general
and individual interests; these are the objects which inflame their
political and individual passions. As the Banks are the soul of their
commerce, their rising manufactures, and even their agriculture, it is
evident that the success of their _politics_ is intimately and directly
connected with the right organization of their banking system. The
real government of the country, that is to say, the control of its
essential interests, is as much in the banks as in any body or power
established by the constitution. The time is come when this fact should
be recognised and sanctioned. As among a military people the office of
marshal or lord-high-constable is the first in the kingdom, so among a
people which has nothing to do with war, and has only to employ itself
with its industry, that of President of the central bank, for example,
ought to be a public charge, _political_, in the sense adapted to the
condition and wants of that people,--and one of the first rank in the
country.
From this point of view, it may be said, that what is now passing
in the United States, is a struggle in which the combatants are, on
the one side, the military interest and the law, which have hitherto
divided between them the control of public affairs, and on the other,
the financial interest, which now claims its share in them; the two
first have coalesced against the last, and have succeeded for a time
in raising the multitude against it, but they will fail in the long
run, since the multitude has more to gain from it than from them. It
is said, that, when the committee of the New York merchants went to
Washington to present a petition with 10,000 names in favour of the
Bank, the President observed to them, that they declared the grievances
of the brokers, capitalists, and merchants of Wall Street and Pearl
Street, but that Wall Street and Pearl Street were not the people. I
do not know whether the story is true or not, but I know that such an
answer would express the opinion of the dominant party. There is a
school here, which attempts to eliminate the wealthy classes from the
people, and which is just the reverse of the old school of European
Tories, which reduces the people to the higher classes, and excludes
from that rank the greater number of the nation. And nothing can be
more unjust, for in order to measure the real importance of the men of
Pearl Street and Wall Street, it is only necessary to consider what New
York would be without them.
In fifty years the population of New York has increased tenfold, its
wealth probably an hundred fold; its animating influences have been
felt for hundreds of miles around. This unparalleled growth is not
the work of lawyers and military men; the merit belongs chiefly to
the industry, the capital, the intelligence, and the enterprise of
that, numerically speaking, insignificant minority of Wall Street
and Pearl Street. It is very easy to cant about the aristocracy of
dollars, and those filthy metals which men call gold and silver. And
yet have not those vile metals ceased to be vile, when they are the
fruit of the industry and enterprise of those who possess them? If
there is a country in the world where it is preposterous to prate about
the aristocracy of dollars, and about the filthy metals, it is this.
For here, more than any where else, every body has some employment;
whoever has capital is engaged in turning it to profit, and can neither
increase nor even keep it without great activity and vigilance. A man's
wealth is, therefore, very generally in the ratio of his importance,
and even of his agricultural, manufacturing, or commercial capacity.
The merchants are not without their faults; they are disposed to weigh
everything in their doubloon-scales, and a people governed entirely by
merchants would certainly be to be pitied. But a people governed by
lawyers or by soldiers would be no happier and no freer. The policy of
the Hamburg Senate in basely giving up unhappy political fugitives to
the English executioner, deserves the contempt of every man of honour;
but would the rule of Russian or even of Napoleon's bayonets, or the
babbling anarchy of the Directory, be less loathsome to those whose
heart beats with the love of liberty or with feelings of individual and
national honour?
The revolutions of ages, which change religion, manners, and customs,
modify also the nature of the powers that regulate society. Providence
humbles the mighty, when they obstinately shut their eyes to the new
spirit of the age, and raises up the lowly, whom this new spirit fires.
Four thousand years ago, it was one of the most important dignities
in Egypt to have the charge of embalming the sacred birds or of
spreading the litter of the bull Apis. In the Eastern empire the post
of _protovestiary_ was one of the first in the state, and not to go so
far back, it was the ambition of many in France, hardly four years ago,
to become _gentilhomme de la chambre_, as the _groom of the stole_,
or, in other words, the _servant in charge of the wardrobe_, is now
one of the grand dignitaries of England. Nobody now-a-days embalms
sacred birds, nobody spreads the litter of Apis. No one intrigues
for the post of protovestiary or gentleman of the chamber, and from
present appearances, I do not think that even the dignity of Groom of
the Stole, will long be an object of ambition in England. There are no
longer lord-high-constables, or great vassals, or knights-errant, or
peers of France in the old sense of the word. The French aristocracy,
so brilliant fifty years ago, has fallen like corn before the reaper.
The mansions of the old heroes have become factories; the convents have
been changed into spinning-works; I have seen Gothic naves in the best
style of art transformed into workshops or granaries, and our brave
troops have become peaceable labourers on the military roads.
Boards of petty clerks, whom the Castellans had employed to record
their sovereign decrees, became in France _parlements_, which braved
the kings and assumed to be guardians of the laws of the realm. At
present the forge masters of Burgundy and the Nivernais, the distillers
of Montpelier, the clothiers of Sedan and Elbeuf, have taken the place
of the _parlements_. German princes, who can boast of their fifty
quarters, dance attendance in the imperial, royal, or ministerial
antechambers, while their Majesties or their Excellencies are
conversing familiarly with some banker who has no patent of nobility,
and who even disdains to oblige his royal friends by accepting one. The
East India Company, a company of merchants if ever there was one, has
more subjects than the emperors of Russia and Austria together. If in
the Old World, where the old interests had marked every corner of the
land with their stamp, the old interests, the military and the law, are
thus obliged to come to terms with the new interest of industry, with
the power of money, how can it be possible, that, in the New World,
where the past has never taken deep root, where all thoughts are turned
toward business and wealth, this same power will not force its way into
the political scene, in spite of the opposition of its adversaries and
its envious rivals?