Democratic standard. [volume] (Georgetown, Brown County, Ohio) 1837-1850, 1841-04-13

murders, and telonles OF all sorts, tina
have been recently reported in the papers
accounts for the fact in the followisg man
her:: . s #N
"Can any rejecting mind be at loss il
ascertaining what has gwen the spur to
the recent rapid career of crime in our
country3 Could any plan bo devised, bet.
ter calculated to instigate outrages, than
the drawing together in vast multiludes,
under some plea of changing the condition
Of things In the State, all the idle, young
thoughtless, and dissipated people in a
nation, and furnishing means to them to
prosecute a reform, by drinking hard
drink, living at free quarters, singing bac-
channalian songs, slrOlling about the coun.
try as the propagatOrs of electioneering
falsehOod, and consumatng their immedi-
ate objects by committing frauds and per-
juries to carry elections? When the mul-
titudes thus drawn from the regular per-
suits Of private life, and banded togeth.
er, and inhamed by artful headers 10 prose
cute schemes which result in nothing ben
efciai to themselves, at the close Of their
labors, are suddenly disbanded, without
resources and without reliance but on
their bad habits, what must be the conse-
quenceH The log cabins which were
their haunts and furnished stimulants to
their patriotism--the taverns which af-
forded them free quarters for food and
rest--and the hands that held their funds
which provided all this, and paid the trav.
cling expenses Of all their busy mission,
are suddenly closed. To what then, are
these active young men, and ardent old
ones, filled with the spirit Of enterprise
and related by high achievements, to re-
sort9 Can they suddenly give up all their
free indulgence-relinquish the idea that
change in the administration would
change the condition from which they
emerged to receive pay as politicians
and turn right round and 60 TO work at
hard labor for livings Such reforma-
ton is as little to be expected in the
classes so abused, as reform ofany kind
from the hands of those by whom they
were employed. No sober, religious, vir-
tuous, man, of any party, could look upon
the mode in which federalism conducted |
the last campaign, without apprehensionS
that it would be productive of fearful con-
sequences in the morals of the mullitudes
enlisted in it, and security of those who
had any thingat sake in society. The
disbanding Of the corps engaged by whig-
gerry was like the disbanding of body Of
mercenary soldiers after a civil war. The
citizens will suffer for years from the dep
rotations of disbanded pipe layers, and
the conlagion Of their vices has already
spread into the country. AS we'll morally
as politically" -l ''
Though there is much truth in these
remarks, the writer has scarcely gone to
the bottom Of the subject. There is a
cause, lying back oft temporary ex-
ctement through which the nation has
inst passed, 10 which is ascribed a great
er part of the excitement itself, and the
consequences that have grown out of it.
That cause is the peculiar system Of
bank ing that has been fastened up
no US.
Two effects of our banking system are
generally conceded-the first that it pro-
duces great and artificial inequality Of {
wealth, and the second, that it increases |
the hazards and uncertainty Of business.
In these two effects, we find sufficient
cause for all the unhappiness and i'm I
morality that is said to mark this more
than any preceding year. Il
A great disparity in the fortunes Of the Z
different members of society, is injurious
to all, to those who have too much as well {
as those who have too little. Those who /
have too much degenerate into luxurious '
idlers-no silnpletons and rakes,--an r
those who have too little, at first destitute r
Of aducation, and then Of the means of '
support, grow reckless and cruel. "An 4
Idle brain'' as good old John Bunysn says I
'sis the DEVILS workshops" and it matters
little, whether the idleness springs from {
riches or poverty. In either case, moral I
! estraints are loosened, while the grosser I
passions grow imPerious, in the one in {
stance, because they are stimulated by I
and in the other becausethey
are whetted by necessity. q
The banking system is cunningly de-
vised method for making some men enor-
mously rich, and Others just as wretched- !
" poor. The former, flushed with sud-
den prosperity, run riot in prOaigacy, and
the latter, hopeless for the want Of en-
ployment, fall into crime. Uneasiness h
Of feeling becomes the portion of both {
md it is not surprising, ifin their restless !,
ness they are easily driven TO violence, {
sither against themselves or others. Their
moral nature losses its balance, which !