the same rate. The Federalists, delighted with this failure, said, with some show of reason, that if the Southern States wanted the war they ought to supply the means, and had no right to expect that men who thought the war unjust and unnecessary should speculate to make money from it. Gallatin put a good face on his failure, and proposed soon to reopen subscriptions; but the disappointment was real. “Whatever the result may be,” wrote Serurier to his Government,[163] “they had counted on more national energy on the opening of a first loan for a war so just. This cooling of the national pulse, the resistance which the Northern States seem once more willing to offer the Administration, the defection it meets every day in Congress,--all this, joined to its irritation at our measures which make its own system unpopular, adds to its embarrassment and hesitation.” Gallatin made no complaints, but he knew only too well what lay before him. No resource remained except treasury notes bearing interest. Neither Gallatin, nor any other party leader, cared to suggest legal-tender notes, which were supposed to be not only an admission of national bankruptcy at the start, but also forbidden by the spirit of the Constitution; yet the government could hardly fail to experience the same form of bankruptcy in a less convenient shape. After the destruction of the United States Bank, a banking mania seized the public. Everywhere new banks were organized or planned, until the legislature of New York, no longer contented with small corporations controlling capital of one or two hundred thousand dollars, prepared to incorporate the old Bank of the United States under a new form, with a capital of six millions. Governor Tompkins stopped the project by proroguing the legislature; but his message gave the astonishing reason that the legislature was in danger of yielding to bribery.[164] The majority protested against the charge, and denounced it as a breach of privilege; but whether it was well or ill founded, the influence of the banking mania on State legislatures could not fail to be corrupting. The evil, inherent in the origin of the new banks, was aggravated by their management. Competition and want of experience or of supervision, inevitably led to over-issue, inflation of credit, suspension of specie payments, and paper-money of the worst character. Between a debased currency of private corporations and a debased currency of government paper, the former was the most expensive and the least convenient; yet it was the only support on which the Treasury could depend.