Two months only after General Jackson had retired, and when his vigorous hand was no longer there to uphold it, the league of State banks fell, and crumbled into atoms; and when Mr. Van Buren had been only three months President, he convoked a special session of Congress for the ensuing September. The country was in wide-spread confusion, paralyzed in its commerce, its currency utterly deranged.[4] What was to be done? What would Mr. Van Buren recommend? He could not go back to the Bank of the United States, for he had committed himself against its constitutionality; nor could he, with any great prospect of success, undertake to reconstruct the league of deposit banks; for it had recently failed, and the country had lost confidence in it. What, then, was to be done? He could go neither backward nor forward. What did he do? I mean not to speak disrespectfully, but I say he--_escaped!_ Afraid to touch the fragments of the broken banks, unable to touch the United States Bank, he folded up his arms, and said, The government has nothing to do with providing a currency for the people. That I may do him no wrong, I will read his own language. His predecessors had all said, We _will not_ turn our backs upon this duty of government to provide a uniform currency; his language is, We _will_ turn our backs on this duty. He proposes nothing for the country, nothing for the relief of commerce, or the regulation of exchanges, but simply the means of getting money into the treasury without loss. In his first message to Congress, he thus expresses himself:-- "It is not the province of our government to aid individuals in the transfer of their funds, otherwise than through the facilities of the Post-Office Department. As justly might it be called on to provide for the transportation of their merchandise. "If, therefore, I refrain from suggesting to Congress any specific plan for regulating the exchanges or the currency, relieving mercantile embarrassments, or interfering with the ordinary operations of foreign or domestic commerce, it is from a conviction that such are not within the constitutional province of the general government, and that their adoption would not promote the real and permanent welfare of those they might be designed to aid."