Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1858-01-06


feet 81 ths banks The banks contract their issues,
call II their debts, and press the people. Specula-
TORS merchants and brokers, failed in cities to
The amount Of twenty millions in one week-down
tumbled the prices Of stocks and cotton lands and
negroes; in fine the whole scene was changed from
bloated prosperity to one of ruin and dismay. The
President calls Congress together in September 1887
recommends the Sub-Treasury, viz: that the affairs
of the Federal Government should be separated from
the banks, and that the Government should collect
its own revenue in the money Of the Constitution,
and keep it by its officers under oath and good
bond and security. who should not, like the banks,
be allow ed to use it, bill sntroduced into Congress
to that effect; few false Democrats calling them
selves Conservativ deeply involved in the interest
of State banks, join the Federal party and vote
against it. -
To encourage the banks to resume specie pay
ments, whereby confidence might be restored, and
the business Of trade revived Congress passed law
giving the banks one, two and three years tine to
pay their debt to the Government. Some OF the
banks Immediately resumed, but the United States
Bank held out until the month of August, 1888,
" hen it for the first time resumed. Confidence be-
ing partially restored the scene again changes.
That Bank being overwhelmed with debt in Europe,
and having by its desperate course, sustained great
losses and ignobly abandoned by its president.
to pay these debts, revive its credit Europe and
repair these losses practced the enormous fraud Of
throwing into circulation in the South, in the pur
chase of cotton and in exchange for local bank pa
per, an immense amount of the notes of the old
Bank. With the local bank notes, it drained the
Southern banks Of their specie to ship to Europe
substituted for them spurious and fraudulent cur
rency, created wild speculation in cotton, lands
and negroes 1t opened new, and wider field than
of bank expansion, by encouraging the States
corporations to borrow between two and three hun.
dred millions to carry on various schemes OF inter-
nal improvement. Established an agency bank
in England TO sell cotton, deal in exchange and State
securities Encouraged the merchants to import goods
by furnishing facilities of exchange to amount OF
many Millions more than exports could pay.
The months of last August and September behed
the people of the United States overwhelmed with
debt-the States in debt about two hundred millions
to British bankers. Railroad and canal corporations
in debt many millions more-the merchants in debt
to England for the over ilnporations of 1885, and
1889, between one hundred and one hundred and
fifty millions Now mark how all these things
came to head last September!
In that month We have seen the Bank of England
borrowing money-the trade and commerce of Eng
land Frustrated in the dust-her laborng population
reduced to beggary and starvation, and the prices
Of American produce, cotton, -four etc., struck down
to nothing; while in that month, witness
Great Regulator borrowing money Of the Earrings
Hopes and Hottinguers of England, France, and
Holland. Its three or four hundred thousands bales
of speculation cotton stored in the warehouses of
Liverpool, cannot be sold at any price. Its visions
of wealth suddenly blasted-presstd to death by its
creditors in England and to sustain its Credits bor-
rowing money North AMI South, by the issue of its
post notes-with the local bank notes, received for
its post notes. draining the local banks Of their spe
Gle, and shipping it to Europe until the superincum
bert mass of debt pressing every where, caused that
Bank to suspend specie payment on the first week
in last October. The other Banks generally followed
in succession the business and trade of the country
was paralyzed and down wentethe prices of labor,
produce, land and stocks, and thousands, usual,
ruined.
mo Sub Treasury-no specie circular in force
10 deposites removed" last October.
1t appears by recent report of the Secretary Of
the Treasury to Congress, on the condition of the
hanks throughout the Union. that during the last
year the banks contracted their circulation about
thirty millions of dollars, thus diminishing the
rency from about twenty-five to thirty per. cent.
For the last six months the banks have refused to-
pay their own debts, while they have been drawing
in their notes and making money scarce, and enforc
ing payment from the people.
The banks have thus thrown down the prices Ct
labor and produce, by destroying the markets for it
at home and abroad, by Withholding that accomoda-
ton to the people which the Government extended
to them in 1882, by pressing their debtors, drawing
money in, and letting none out.
As go the banks, So goes the trade and business
of the country. A few irresponsible men exercise
secret, invisible power the fortunes, the COM
fort and lives of the community, which it seems no
power can control.