When this legislature met in the winter of 1836-7, the bank and internal-improvement infatuation had taken full possession of a majority of the people, as well as of the politicians. To be sure, "Old Hickory" had given a temporary check to the wild speculations in Western land by the specie circular, about the close of his administration, whereby gold and silver were made "land-office money;" and the Government declined to exchange any more of the public domain for the depreciated paper of rotten and explosive banks. Millions of notes loaned by the banks on insufficient security or no security at all were by this timely measure turned back into the banks, or converted to the uses of a more legitimate and less dangerous business. But, even if the specie circular had not been repealed, it would probably have proved impotent against the evils it was designed to prevent, after the passage of the Act distributing among the States the surplus (or supposed surplus) revenues of the Federal Government. The last dollar of the old debt was paid in 1833. There were from time to time large unexpended and unappropriated balances in the treasury. What should be done with them? There was no sub-treasury as yet, and questions concerning the mere safe-keeping of these moneys excited the most tremendous political contests. The United States Bank had always had the use of the cash in the treasury in the form of deposits; but the bank abused its trust,--used its enormous power over the currency and exchanges of the country to achieve political results in its own interest, and, by its manifold sins and iniquities, compelled Gen. Jackson to remove the deposits. Ultimately the bank took shelter in Pennsylvania, where it began a new fraudulent life under a surreptitious clause tacked to the end of a road law on its passage through the General Assembly. In due time the "beast," as Col. Benton loved to call it, died in its chosen lair a shameful and ignominious death, cheating the public with a show of solvency to the end, and leaving a fine array of bill-holders and depositors to mourn one of the most remarkable delusions of modern times.