Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The agency of the Government in producing these results has been as
efficient as its powers and means permitted. By withholding from the States
the deposit of the fourth installment, and leaving several millions at long
credits with the banks, principally in one section of the country, and more
immediately beneficial to it, and at the same time aiding the banks and
commercial communities in other sections by postponing the payment of bonds
for duties to the amount of between four and five millions of dollars; by
an issue of Treasury notes as a means to enable the Government to meet the
consequences of their indulgences, but affording at the same time
facilities for remittance and exchange; and by steadily declining to employ
as general depositories of the public revenues, or receive the notes of,
all banks which refused to redeem them with specie--by these measures,
aided by the favorable action of some of the banks and by the support and
cooperation of a large portion of the community, we have witnessed an early
resumption of specie payments in our great commercial capital, promptly
followed in almost every part of the United States. This result has been
alike salutary to the true interests of agriculture, commerce, and
manufactures; to public morals, respect for the laws, and that confidence
between man and man which is so essential in all our social relations.
The contrast between the suspension of 1814 and that of 1837 is most
striking. The short duration of the latter, the prompt restoration of
business, the evident benefits resulting from an adherence by the
Government to the constitutional standard of value instead of sanctioning
the suspension by the receipt of irredeemable paper, and the advantages
derived from the large amount of specie introduced into the country
previous to 1837 afford a valuable illustration of the true policy of the
Government in such a crisis. Nor can the comparison fail to remove the
impression that a national bank is necessary in such emergencies. Not only
were specie payments resumed without its aid, but exchanges have also been
more rapidly restored than when it existed, thereby showing that private
capital, enterprise, and prudence are fully adequate to these ends. On all
these points experience seems to have confirmed the views heretofore
submitted to Congress. We have been saved the mortification of seeing the
distresses of the community for the third time seized on to fasten upon the
country so dangerous an institution, and we may also hope that the business
of individuals will hereafter be relieved from the injurious effects of a
continued agitation of that disturbing subject. The limited influence of a
national bank in averting derangement in the exchanges of the country or in
compelling the resumption of specie payments is now not less apparent than
its tendency to increase inordinate speculation by sudden expansions and
contractions; its disposition to create panic and embarrassment for the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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