The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1842-03-12
From the Savannah { Ga Republican.
rTuE vNIMEC

1t is difficult to say where and when the financial
embarrassments of the country will stop. Gloom
settles upon all commercial relations and we see
but little prospect at present of brighter day. The
evil affects all classes and conditions and the poor
widow who depends upon her weekly earnings for
support is made to feel in her proportion, equally
with the merchant the pinchng contractions of the
times. To seek out the causes of these difficulties
would aid us but little in averting them. They have
been sprnging up from variety of sources and are
in measure born Of the very prosperity of which
we have of late years been much Boosting. This
unnatural stimulus of wealth. by magnifyng each
| mans means, gave fictitious value to property
which, in times of soberness, has recoiled upon both
buyer and seller with tremendous evils The failure
of so many banking institutions, the dishonesty of so
many of their officers the great embarrassments of
the United States attending the falling off of State Sc
curtes Sc &c., have largely tended to this terrible
dsarrangement in the affairs of the nation and the
general pressure upon the people. When it will
cease is a question more difficult to answer than how
it began, and can only say in general that egis-
late as States and Congress may upon the subject the
gloomy condition of money affairs will not be changed
until individual corporate State, and national homes
ty become manifest and encouraged and hon
or instead of selfish interest," rule with all the peo
pie.
The moral effects of these sudden contractions and
expansions in mercantile affairs are of fearful ma
ture. universal feeling of distrust is engendered
and man looks suspciously on his neighbor. Mutual
confidence, which so binds together and harmonizes
communities is destroyed, and each seems upon the
look out for the others downfall.
The tone of honesty in our country has also sadly
declined through the agency of these financial
The numerous abscondng of men connected with
moneyed Institutions the breaking up of those inst
buttons, and the comparative venality of the offence
of defacation which seems to obtain n both the high
and low places of the land, have done much to de-
stroy the wholesome morals and probity of the peo
ple and render migratory the barriers, which of old
virtue had thrown up intrenchments around our
character.
But the increase of crime consequent these en-
barrassments is one of its most alarming effects.
These are the stagnant times which spawn the de-
stroyers of peace and order These the times
which invite the spoiler and the felon prey upon
| society in which crime bold front and a
gloating eye.
No man carefully survey the condition of things
around him, without feeling the truth of remarks.
They force themselves upon us at every turn they
verified by the Of daily life, and we
cannot but in them no good and no bodings of
good unless the people people determine to sup
port their credit and honor and by personal efforts
and legislative enactments guard society from those
vibrations which keep like pendulum swinging be-
tween opposite extremes
We truly hope have the worst of these
pressures that it is the nadr of our pecunary trot-
bles as a community, and that though the darkness
may yet linger for little, it viii insensby give
place to a meridian day.