The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1857-11-03
THE BANKING SYSTEM, IT'S DEFECTS AND
ABUsES-C ONCLULED

Va
of banking, we shall conclude our series by few
general observations. .
1t has been intmated to us by some of our friends
who agree with Us perfectly in our general princi-
pies that have not treated the delinquent banks
with that respectful courtesy due to institutions
thorized by law, and with whose management so
many respectable and estimabe citizens are associ-
ated. ..
That we have not handled them with gloves is GER
tain for there are times when the truth should be
told without disguise or extenuaton. To apologize
for offences is to encourage them, and consider
that recreant TO the happiness of his fellows
and the best interests Of society who makes the dig
nifed position of the offender an apology for the Of
fence who attempts to diminish that saluary horror
of crime in others which is Of the best preserva-
tves Of virtue by prating about the temptations Of
the world the infrmties of our nature, and bringing
them forward paliatives for the worst OF crimes
We think we have too much of this cant already
The most atrocious criminals not guilty but
unfortunate men the murderer has become an
object of pity instead Of his victims; women make
pilgrmagcs to the prisons to gaze with admiration
or prostitute their sympathes on some wretch who
has disgraced his Maker and his fellow-men by vi
olation of all laws, divine and human and speaking
generally, it cannot be doubted, think, that the
moral sense of the people has been bunted not only
by attempts to diminish the enormity of crime but
by squeamsh unwillingness to bring it to punish
men especially in capital cases. Swindling is soften
cd down into speculation; murder into homicide and
in many communities it is almost impossible to find
,ubo xr,n 81 H., IS loo+l
on criminal who has wantonly deprived
moro than one of his fellow-creatures Of life. The
prerogative of mercy, which conferred on our
high executive officers to be exercised only in ex-
IRENE cases, has been grossly abused by letting
loose the most abandoned criminals again to prey
society. In short there seems almost general
combination to screen depravity and oblige honest
men to resort to lynch law for protection redress
We confess we feel no sympathy with this species
of philanthropy We are accustomed to call things
by their old-fashioned Names from conviction that
things, and that to clothe vice in the garb
of virtue is to divest it of everything that renders it
abhorrent to our feelings. horror of vice is one
of the greatest safeguards to virtue.
We believe there is scarcely one man in the Uni
ted States who does not acknowledge that from
time to time, if not at all times the banks have
been the means of inhicting the most grievous and
widespread calamies the people, most especially
that portion best entitled to the protection of
government. Within less than half century they
have four times taken the bread from the mouths of
the laboring classes by deprivng them of work. and
debasing the medium through which they were COM
pensated. All this was done as if by one sponta-
neous impulse as swift as tho operation of the tele-
graphic wires. If it was really for seE-preservation
can only say it was carrying the doctrine to OK
tremes by sacrificing the many to the fow and under
color ofsaving themselves, infictng deep wound on
tho honor of their country and the general welfare
Of their fellow-etizens. f 5,. ....l 3D.. .rGE
Why, we ask, was it necessary, because the Ohio
Life and Trust Company exploded, that the thou
sand and one banks, dispersed among the cities, vii
lagos and forests throughout the whole extent of the
country, great and small, should suspend specie
payments They must have been at halfcock to go
off SO readily they must have stood with the match
at the touch-hole. They hundreds, thousands
of miles apart their capitals, il they had any,
totally distinct from each other they could have
had no legitimate business connexon yet they shut
their doors, as 1t were, at one slap and tmbed in,
one after the other, like house of cards. The
failure Of the banks of city was the signal for
those Of the country and the panic, it is called,
which in reality originated with themselves, was
made the pretext for bringing those evils, which had
only been anticipated, in all their stupendous reality
on the heads of the people. .'
Whether this spontaneous combustion was brought
about by general combination for political pm-
poses we cannot say Such things havo happened
before and once at least during the great contest for
the establishment of the sub-treasury. The banks
suspended, and banluupted government, with
view to coerce it into subection to their interests.
1t looks as if it had political object in view
when we see the failure of the banks ascribed by
that prince of philosophers, the editor of tho Tri-
bune, to the tariff and attempts made to throw the
responsibility on the democratic party But if such
was their object they have failed most sgnaly The
saddle has been placed the right horse, and the
I Tribune furnishes second edition Of the celebrated
archer who shot at frog, but, missing bis mark,
shot into . bog But to resume apology.
b If these periodical colapses of the banks the
natural and inevitable results of an incuable chron
10 disease, beyond the roach Of cure alienation,
hen the creation qf such rickeV, artificial bodies