Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850Benton, Thomas Hart
History
Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850
Benton, Thomas Hart
United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861
Another resolve summed up the list of grievances of which they
complained, and enumerated the causes of the pervading ruin which
had been brought upon the country. Thus:
"_Resolved_, That the chief causes of the existing distress
are the defeat of Mr. Clay's land bill, the removal of the
public deposits, the refusal to re-charter the Bank of the
United States, and the issuing of the specie circular. The land
bill was passed by the people's representatives, and vetoed
by the President--the bill rechartering the bank was passed
by the people's representatives, and vetoed by the President.
The people's representatives declared by a solemn resolution,
that the public deposits were safe in the United States Bank;
within a few weeks thereafter, the President removed the public
deposits. The people's representatives passed a bill rescinding
the specie circular: the President destroyed it by omitting
to return it within the limited period; and in the answer to
our addresses, President Van Buren declares that the specie
circular was issued by his predecessor, omitting all notice
of the Secretary of the Treasury, who is amenable directly to
Congress, and charged by the act creating his department with
the superintendence of the finances, and who signed the order."
These two resolves deserve to be noted. They were not empty or
impotent menace. They were for action, and became what they were
intended for. The moneyed corporations, united with a political
party, were in the field as a political power, to govern the
elections, and to govern them, by the only means known to a moneyed
power--by operating on the interests of men, seducing some, alarming
and distressing the masses. They are the key to the manner of
conducting the presidential election, and which will be spoken of in
the proper place. The union of Church and State has been generally
condemned: the union of Bank and State is far more condemnable.
Here the union was not with the State, but with a political party,
nearly as strong as the party in possession of the government,
and exemplified the evils of the meretricious connection between
money and politics; and nothing but this union could have produced
the state of things which so long afflicted the country, and from
which it has been relieved, not by the cessation of their imputed
causes, but by their perpetuation. It is now near twenty years
since this great meeting was held in New York. The ruinous measures
complained of have not been revoked, but become permanent. They have
been in full force, and made stronger, for near twenty years. The
universal and black destruction which was to ensue their briefest
continuance, has been substituted by the most solid, brilliant,
pervading, and abiding prosperity that any people ever beheld.
Thanks to the divorce of Bank and State. But the consummation was
not yet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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