13 on the fullest attention I have been able to give both subjects, that I think,the Bank, under the tenets it avows, a foe more dangerous to the press, than the lodges of the, whole Union put together. If the coassociates of the former; at its central head, and five and twenty out posts, be not connected by oaths, they much more than make up for this, by money ; an agent more steady, more active, more efficient by far, when the supply is abundant, than any other conceivable agency, in withdrawing presses from their independence. The machinery of this monied institution, over the great space that it sweeps, may be moved by equal unity of impulse and design, and with.tenfold power. I leave this topic, resorted to simply for this illustration, and, with it, leave this branch of your inquiry. If I do not go into further reasons for not rechartering the bank, thin those given by yourselves, as I have brought tfidm under review, it is because I deem these enough. J think that there are others, and decided ones, furnished by its own manifesto. Alike clear am.I, that the treatment of the governmentdirectors, as made known in their memorial, is destructive of fundamental objects in the charter. If I do not enter upon a developement of this assertion, it is not that it would not, in my judgment, bear jt, and a strong one ; but it would overload my letter, and may at this day be dispensed with. But I cannot avoid a passing allusion to the vital error in the bank, springing from the spirit of usurpation I aimed at unfolding, which would view the government directors in no other light than the ordinary cirgc- tors, lyho represent the pecuniary interest of the stockholders. So thought not the statesmen best fitted to instruct us on the point ; the Hamiltons, the Dallases, the Madisons. So would not have thought tAe bank in the days of its origin and weakness. '•Nor would its defenders, in those days, have ventured to term the representatives of the collective people of the Union at its board of direction, spies, for doing what has lately earned this title. Their' phraseology would have been more guarded. If. How far the bank has caused the pressure in the money market, is a question not resting on grounds so palpable as the one I have been considering. Perhaps it is premature to attempt any answer to it at present, the House of Representatives having, by its late resolution, charged the committee of investigation to ascertain, if this can be done, whether, the bank “ has had any agency, through its management or money, in producing the existing pressure.” The incipient report of that committee, its mission unexpectedly terminated, its object contumaciously baffied, is now before the nation. There I leave jt for consideration,; If an image of the true majesty of the nation is anywhere to be seen, it is where its assembled Representatives sit. 'Jo them I leave the high duty of passing upon the Report; of vindicating their own and the nation’s authority, their own and the nation’s dignity, as they may think each has been newly infringed. Norhaye I at hand the latest statements from the bank. On this account, .also, I am less able to meet your second inquiry. The removal of the deposits was nothing more than transferring the money of the government from the Bank ofthe United States and its branches, where it had been kept before, to State' Banks, where it is to be kept in future. The eoun- try was not deprived of a single bank note, or a single silver dollar, by this step. In point of fact, it fell out, from the state of foreign exchange, that silver dollars were imported at about this epoch ; so that ol hard money we had more, within a few months after the deposits were removed, and of pa- per money not less. It seems difficult at first to believe, under this state of things, that distress could haye been produced without a plan to bring it aboqt, lurking somewhere. On the supposition of such a 'plan, nothing easier than its accomplishment, by those working the money-springs of the country. I have before me, a letter recently received from a London correspondent, perfectly acquainted with the operation of the stock and money markets of that great world. In the course of it, he remarks upon the “ wonderfully small amount of capital withdrawn or added, that will be sufficient to make money scarce or plenty all over a country.” I give his words, and they are true. We have the authority of the President of the bank, than whom no one is better informed or more capable of judging, that at a moment of impending scarcity in our country, in 1825, a sc-t city threatening disastrous consequences to its' general business,' abundance was restored by the increase of bank loans on a single morning, in New York, to the amount of only fifty thousand dollars.. It would seem, on the same authority, that England was mainly saved from worse disasters the same year, by the unexpected arrival from f’rapce of so small a relative sum as two hundred thousand sovereigns ; the simple explanation of all which is, that it is the public fears or confidence which, for the most part, keep money locked up, or-open its receptacles to the public wants. It is evident, that it lies with those who stand high, est in the money market, to operate most upon both, There have been causes at work to create a demand for money which.would have rendered the supply more difficult than usual, had the depositsnot been removed. I here particularly allude to the change in our commercialcode, by the law that took effect last spring and summer, shortening credits for duties on large portions of merchandise imported, and requiring cash payments on other portions where formerly credit was given. This cause has not been overlooked by able speakers in Congress ; but little comparative stress has been laid upon it, although it deserves so much. It is computed that a demand for additional sums to an amount scarcely less than: ten millions of dollars, has arisen in the port of New- York alone^ within the year, from this single cause. But for its operation this money would have been left in the hands of the merchants, instead of being paid away at the custom house. It would have been, in effect, a loan'of so much to them by the government Until the terms of credit existing previously, had run out. With this money, many of them would perhaps have made another voyage, or otherwise employed it, so as to have paid the duties when the time came round, with the chances of a surplus, through gains which they would thus have had an intermediate opportunity of acquiring. Even if the deposits had not been removed, the Bank wpuld not readily have been able to supply this demand, to which others from the same cause must be added for other parts of the country; at least if we take its own declara
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