Benton and others pretended to believe that the panic was the result of a deep-laid plot on the part of the rich classes, who controlled the banks, to excite popular hostility against the Jacksonian Democracy, on account of the caste antagonism which these same richer classes were supposed to feel towards the much-vaunted "party of the people;" and as Benton's mental vision was singularly warped in regard to some subjects, it is possible that the belief was not altogether a pretense. It is entirely unnecessary now seriously to discuss the proposition that it would be possible to drag the commercial classes into so widespread and profoundly secret a conspiracy, with such a vague end in view, and with the certainty that they themselves would be, from a business stand-point, the main sufferers. The efforts made by Benton and the other Jacksonians to stem the tide of public feeling and direct it through the well-worn channel of suspicious fear of, and anger at, the banks, as the true authors of the general wretchedness, were unavailing; the stream swelled into a torrent and ran like a mill-race in the opposite way. The popular clamor against the administration was deafening; and if much of it was based on good grounds, much of it was also unreasonable. But a very few years before the Jacksonians had appealed to a senseless public dislike of the so-called "money power," in order to help themselves to victory; and now they had the chagrin of seeing an only less irrational outcry raised against themselves in turn, and used to oust them from their places, with the same effectiveness which had previously attended their own frothy and loud-mouthed declamations. The people were more than ready to listen to any one who could point out, or pretend to point out, the authors of, and the reasons for, the calamities that had befallen them. Their condition was pitiable; and this was especially true in the newer and Western states, where in many places there was absolutely no money at all in circulation, even the men of means not being able to get enough coin or its equivalent to make the most ordinary purchases. Trade was at a complete stand-still; laborers were thrown out of employment and left almost starving; farmers, merchants, mechanics, craftsmen of every sort,--all alike were in the direst distress. They naturally, in seeking relief, turned to the government, it being almost always the case that the existing administration receives more credit if the country is prosperous, and greater blame if it is not, than in either case it is rightfully entitled to. The Democracy was now held to strict reckoning, not only for some of its numerous real sins but also for a good many imaginary ones; and the change in the political aspect of many of the commonwealths was astounding. Jackson's own home State of Tennessee became strongly Whig; and Van Buren had the mortification of seeing New York follow suit; two stinging blows to the president and the ex-president.