The Yazoo City Whig and political register. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 183?-1840, 1839-08-23


Either ignorant Of or knowingly and reck-
Iessly disregarding lmoIe probably The laster)
the fraud and treaeAery and national misery
which were actually involved Ia tie great
Government System, Gen. Jackson, with
ell the air of q patriot. determined 10 give
70 his subjects, first and foremost ii the
world, the practical benefit to be derived
from his remarkable discover The word
went fo.th; and the newly discovered prin-
ciple, embodied in the form of the long and
bitterly to be remembered Treasury Circular
of 1886. strobe over the lands not as a cree
alive genius of prosperity, but as the Des-
troying Angel, breathing around on all the
sirocco, or the 'tmost lone simeon" Of palsy
Ing distress and desolation. The funds and
credit Of the government having been thus
virtually withdrawn, q demand for specie
was made universally. But to the cry Of
swhere is the speciel" did indeed, echo
answer " where?'' Like Ben Hardin's mus
quitoes in a thunder storm, to which he
compared the gentlemen of the pistol and
bowie knife in the moment of battle, in the
midst of the confusion thus qui ckly and
suddenly created 1.-THE specie was ''no sVhere
TO be found" All the banks, whether pei
banks or not--the more immediate and PAL
pable sso6icinG dipittaeum, . found themselves
inveigled into snare, duped, and so vehem-
emily pressed to specie payment and an im-
mediate eurtailment of their circulation,
which but a short time before they could
not increase with rapidity and to an ex-
tent at all proportionate to the demand, that
they were compelled to stop payment. The
credit system, which had so fascinated men,
now appearedto be but an igniSfatures which
had lured them on to destruction.
At this CRISES of affairs, Gen. Jackson's
popularity and influence remained so great,
that men in their anguish rather cursed them
selves and the credit system, than drought
of ascertaining and cursing the real authors
of all their distress. What a wonderful
thing is popularity! 1t does, indeed, but
too closely resemble that
"strange power of genius, that can throw
DER all THAT'S vicious, weak, and low,
Such magic lights, such rainbow dyes,
AS dazzle even the steadiest eyes,"
The government itself quickly demanded
of the deposite banks, that the deposites
should be paid into the Federal Treasury in
specie. The banks having lost credit, the
people said much less than ought to have
been said against this step. But alas! it
would seem that the government had some
way or other overreached itself. The banks
could not, as matter of course, pay specie
at once, to so large an amount. b could be,
and was done, only by degrees; and we be-
lieve the demand of the government has
not as yet been fully complied with. Hence
the Federal Treasury became, itself, bank
rdpt in common with all men and all mon
eyed institutions in the land. Hence, again,
instead of . regular system of specie receipts
and disbursements, we find Treasury notes
invested with the regular appearance of
bank paper; most abundantIy issued, and
with difficulty if at all redeemable: If Mr..
Rives' exposition; 70 which we refer our
readers, be correct, the whole Treasury or
ub-Treasuty System is itself, not in mere
form and aspect only, but in
substance and constitution, neither more
nor less than National Bank.
Comparing the credit system to ball set
in motion, we find that although the propell-
ing power of the government had been re-
moved by means Of the Treasury Circular,
yet its motion was not thereby totally ami
hilated: This might have arisen from that
which seems to exist as we'll in |
the moral as the physical world, and which,
we cannot but believe; that the credit sys-
lem must have acquiesed to no small extent. |
It might have been originally designed as
part of the Government Scheme; if any SEN
sible construction or inference can be attach
ed to Col. Benton's seeming in his letter; to
ook forward to another ''suspension'' Or
'explOsion of the paper SYSTEM as the sole
and last requisite for the establishment of
he Sub=Treasury: Can it be believed that
any civilized human being, who pretends
o advocate liberty and republican prosperi-
y, would thus desire to effect an end by
means of which must necessarily create
much pecuniary arrangement and distress!
Yet here we have before US a melancholy
Instance of such an individual. Moreover,
n ashort time, public confidence inthe gov
.rnment was much diminished. From these
,auses, and the fact that the banking system
lad taken the deepest root in the national
mind, we ind that the credit system; altho'
'araIysed for moment, still went on with
10 inconsiderable energy. We know that
n the State Of Mississippi, since the Trea-
Jury Circular, Banks have been multiplied,
md that by the Loco-Focos themselves, like
bubbles on the surface Of boiling wa.er.-ll
This, BY the bye, wears very much the as