by ten thousand whigs, is a rank insult to the common understanding of every American. Itnecessarily implies that the democratic party are too great blockheads to perceive what are their true interests, or if they do perceive them, that they are too craven-spjrited to advocate them. Away with such a contemptible argument, such a poor slang. Let every democrat throw back such an insulting and mendacious sentiment, as unworthy even the filthy pettifogging of the vilest demagogue. Credit is useful. Between man and man it acts a thousand important offices. Even if society could exist without it, it would be embarrassed in its daily and hourly transactions. Its use is a test of the social moral sentiment, for if no obligations were entered into between individuals, their integrity would have few occasions of being proved. It is also an evidence of the standing of a nation in the scale of civilization. As we trace the history of civilization up to its source, we shall find that m the ruder times there was no credit known. Men did not trust each other, because there was no commerce, no manufactures, no social privileges to maintain, and no public sentiment to strengthen the claims of contracts. Capital did not accumulate except in the hands of chiefs, and other exclu- Bivesprivilege^men of those times. The many were content to gain a precarious support from day to day. Civilization is the cause of credit, and without it we might reasonably tear that much of our superiority over the barbarous nations would be taken away. We repeat therefore, that the democratic faith asks not, wishes not, seeks not the abolition of common credit. War on the Banks. The charge is reiterated from a thousand presses and ten thousand tongues, in hours of soberness and of “hard cider” revelry, that the Administration is “making war on the banks.” That the great principles of democracy will place the banking interest in its true position in the social circle, cannot be denied. That position is one of absolute divorce from the government treasury. The demands of ordinary business will at all times indicate where banks are necessary, and the legislatures of the several states will have the wisdom—as they have, by the constitution, the right—to give such charters as may please them. Democracy says, “let us leave banking institutions where we leave other institutions, .with the several states“let there be no intermeddling with these matters, but give free action to the community.” To show that the charge of 11 War upon the Banks” is a whig slander, let us copy' what President Van Buren said in relation theretain his Annual Message of 1833:, “ The banks,” said he, “have but to be content m their appropriate sphere, to avoid all interference with the general government, and to derive from it all the protection and benefits which it bestows on other state establishments, on the people of the states, and on the states themselves. In this, their true position, they cannot but secure the confix dence and good will of the people and the government, which they can only lose when, leaping from their legitimate sphere, they attempt to control the legislation of the country, and pervert the operations of the government to their own purpose. “It will not, I am sure, be deemed out of place for me here to remark, that the declaration of my views in opposition to the policy of employing banks as depositories of the government funds, cannot justly be construed as indicative of hostility, official or per* sonal, to those institutions; or to repeat, in this form, and in connection with this subs ject, opinions which I have uniformly entertained, and on all proper occasions expressed. Though always opposed to their creation in the form of exclusive privileges, and as a state magistrate aiming by appropriate legislation to secure the community against the consequences of their occasional mismanagement, I have yet ever wished to see them protected in the exercise of rights conferred by law, and have never doubted their utility, when properly managed, in promoting the interests of trade, and through that channel, the other interests of the community.” Again, in his Annual Message of 1840, in speaking of the shameless suspension of specie payments by some of the banks, he says thus—which certainly is not the lam* guage of war: “A large and highly respectable portion of our banking institutions are, it affords me unfeigned pleasure to state, exempted from all blame on account of this second delim quency. They have, to their great credit, not only continued to meet their engagements, but have even repudiated the grounds of suspension now resorted to. It is only by such a course that the confidence and good will of the community can be preserved, and, in the sequel, the best interests of the institutions themselves promoted.” These are the sentiments of the Chief Magistrate of the nation, and the acknowledged head of the democratic party. Let every man read these sentiments, and when a whig charges the party with a warfare on the banking institutions of the country, tell him he is either ignorant or dishonest in making the charge. No true democrat is,at war
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