Doubtless the objections to the Bank were so strong as some day to become fatal. In a society and government so little developed as those of America, a National Bank was out of keeping with other institutions. Even in England and France these banks exercised more influence over the Treasury than was proper; and in America, if once the Bank should unite in political sympathy with the Government, it might do no little harm. The necessity for such an institution was merely one of the moment, but in the period of national history between 1790 and 1860, the year 1811 was perhaps the only moment when destruction of the Bank threatened national ruin. A financial cataclysm had prostrated credit from St. Petersburg to New Orleans. Prices were nominal. England owed America large sums of money, but instead of discharging the debt, she was trying to escape payment and withdraw specie. Already the supply of specie in the United States was insufficient to sustain the bank-note circulation. In New York city the State banks were supposed to hold not more than half a million dollars, and in Pennsylvania not much more than a million; while the Bank of the United States had lost three and a half millions in eleven months, and had but five and a half millions left.[268] Meanwhile the State banks not only expanded their issues, but also rapidly increased in number. Suppression of the National Bank could not fail to stimulate this movement. “The banks established by the State legislatures will scramble for the privilege of filling the chasm to be made by the destruction of the Bank of the United States. Already are they preparing for the patriotic endeavor. Our State legislatures are to be importuned to become bank jobbers and joint undertakers and copartners in the enterprise.”[269] Nothing could prevent expansion of credit, drain of specie, bankruptcy and confusion of the currency; and this was to be done at the time the country entered into a war with the only Power whose influence could shake the Union to its foundation. Madison stood aloof, and left on Gallatin the burden of the struggle; but Gallatin’s energies and influence could do little with the Eleventh Congress. He was strongest in the House; but there the debate, after many speeches, ended, January 24, by a vote of sixty-five to sixty-four in favor of indefinite postponement, and by common consent all parties waited for the Senate to decide. The omen was not happy for the Treasury.