11 rations, and men of business,“was not less than 200 millions of dollars”—requiring ten millions of dollars annually, or one hundred thousand dollars each and every week,1 to pay the interest! How important—how indispensable to our national salvation—that we beware how we silently lay ourselves subject to themoney power of England ! Let -us remember her conquest of British India and its 100 millions of people, and now her bold adventure to bring China obedient at her feet. Where lies the secret of the present pressure in business ? Simply because the speculating bubble has burst. This is the sum and substance of the whole matter. It is all the sad work of the speculating principle, maddened in its operation by the stimulating powers of the banking interest. Had not our nation pos* sessed the elasticity and energy of youth, and had not God in His mercy blessed us with health and the fulness of the earth, we should have forever sunk beneath the mad waves of speculation. Madness seemed to possess many in the world of business. The fancy- peopled dur Western world with myriads upon myriads of millions more than the present century will see in its borders. Where the wild bird makes his nest unscared, the hunx gry speculator marked out on the rough bark of the forest trees the outlines of great cities, and forthwith paraded them before his fellow citizens in all the beauties of a lithographic map, and cheated them of their tens of thousands of hard earned dollars. The prudent of all ages were duped by the prevailing mania, and in all society the evil leaven was at its work. The man who should gather up a faithful account of the stupendous ‘‘humbugs” (to use a common word) of the speculating era through which we have but just past, will do a great favor to posterity. He will place on record an array of facts which the prudent of the next generation will scarcely believe could have taken place. Something like the following may be adduced asa sample, though they are very modest ones of their species: “ A lot of land in Poughkeepsie, which in 1836 was sold for $5,000, has at this time mortgages on it to the amount of $200,000, and the land is now worth no more than it was in 1836. Somebody must have lost one hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars, by the enterprise of the “improvementparty” of Poughkeepsie, of which we heard so much in 1836: and whose colored plans of village lots, and “mulberry farms” were sent through the country under the frank of Mr. Senator Tallmadge.” The Hudson Gazette commenting upon the statement given by the Poughkeepsie Telegraph of the result of the above speculations in Poughkeepsie, says : “ A lot of land containing about forty acres, about half a mile north of this city, was bought up in 1836, for about $5,000, and laid out into building lots, which were thrown into the market and sold ; a small portion of the purchase money was paid in cash, and the balance secured by mortgage. We understand that there is now more than two hundred thousand dollars in mortgages on these lots, which are not worth over five thousand dollars.” We have known old men—bowed beneath the cares and vicissitudes of almost a century, sent abroad at life’s close,—poor and friendless—from a homeof comfort, as the result of the recent speculation. Rich men have become poor, and the widow’s and the orphan’s mite have gone to the four winds as a consequence; the little bank and insurance stock, from which they of their poverty drew their scanty living, having been saw crifieed to the insatiate Moloch ! And now—(deep shame be upon the federalists—) with such facts as these staring them in the face, they tell the democrat that to his political dobtrines the blame of his country’s disasters is to belaid I Away with such a bald, and bold, and wicked assertion. A federalist disgraces himself, and insults the common sense of the community when he says so. ■ > The True Cause of the pressure is beginning to be admitted even by the whigs. A bold and able whig paper of New York City holds the following language: “ We hope our financiers will see the end of the Biddle policy, its utter unsoundness and folly. Endless expansion is not the way to pay debts, neither do high salaries and a great display of establishment constitute a safe basis of credit. The old fashioned no* tion of keeping your expenses within your income, is worth more than all the new schemes of splendid financiering. At one time Mr. Biddle’s false principles of finance raised him high in popular favor. His doctrines proclaimed peace to daring speculators, and temporary ease to all. But the end has been the overthrow of our institutions, and the destruction of almost a whole .race of merchants. We have no doubt that, take it all in all, Mr. Biddle has caused the ruin of more business men in this country, than have been overthrown by all other causes united for the last twenty years. Yet, such was the trust reposed in his skill, that men seemed rather to prefer to be killed by him than saved by the old principles of financial practice. He was a tremendous quack, Eut truth outlives opinion. Mr. Biddle’s glory has departed, and the world is rapidly coming to estimate both his ‘ head and heart’ correctly.”
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