The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-26

we REFER the consequences Of which were in
berited by Mr.. Van Buren,, was not the des-
truotion Of the bank, but the destruction of it
without providing suitable depository of the
public money to take its place. The sub
treasury had not yet been thought of. The
money of the Government was scattered
about among twenty-five State banks, and
the possession of these funds gave to the
banks an unnatural and pernicious ex-
pansion of their capital, and tempted
other banks to increase the volume
of their currency. Thus the country was
Hooded with paper money, which stimulated
the widest speculation in land, and brought
about state of things similar to that which
prevailed during the third and fourth years of
the late war. Three months after Mr.. Van
Buren's inauguration, the reaction reached a
crisis, the bubble burst, the banks suspended,
merchants failed, credit ceased to be, and ruin
filled the land. General Jackson had sOwn the
wind, and his successor reaped the whirlwind.
The retribution was just, for nearly every inn
portant financial measure of General Jackson
had received Mr.. Van Buren's support.
81 arrived" he tells us in his posthumous
work. ''at New York, from my brief mission
to England, after the Bank bill had passed
both Houses, and on the day il was sent TO
President Jackson for his approval, and left
the next morning for Washington. Arriving
there at midnight proceeded at once to the
White House, in pursuance of an invitation
he had sent TO New York in anticipation of
my coming | found the General in bed, sup
ported by pillows, in miserable health, but
awake and awaiting and expecting me. Be
fore suffering me to take seat, and whilst
still holding my hand, he, with characteristic
eagerness when in the execution of weghty
concerns, spoke to me of the bank, of the bill
that had been sent for his approval, and of
the satisfaction he derived from my arrival at
so critical a moment; and | have not for
gotten the satisfaction which beamed from
his countenance when | expressed hope
that he would veto it, and when l declared
my opinion that it was in that way only
he could discharge the great duty he owed
to the country and to himself Not that he
was ignorant of my views upon the subject,
for in all our conversations in respect to it
before l left the country-and they had been
frequent and anxious-my voice had been de-
cided as well against the then existing as
against any other National Bank. Neither that
he was himself in doubt as to the course that
he ought to pursue, for he entertained none.
But the satisfaction he evinced, and which he
expressed in the most gratifying terms, arose
solely from the relief he derived from finding
himself so cordially sustained in a step he had
determined to take, but in respect to which he
had been severely harassed by the stand taken
by the leading members Of his Cabinet, and
by the remonstrances of many timid and not
few false friends, and as yet been encouraged
only by the few about him in comparatively
subordinate positions, who were alike faithful
to principle and to himself"
So the great banks which had for twenty
years received and disbursed the public money,
passed out of existence, and that public
money, distributed all over the country in
weak banks, became public curse. Mr.. Van
Buren,, singularly ignorant of finance, was
utterly unprepared for the financial storm
which drove him from power. A few days
before his Inauguration, Colonel Benton took
the President elect aside, and predicted the
coming crash. Mr.. Van Buren,, though the
best tempered of men, was little nettled,
and said, ''Your friends think you little
exalted in the head on that subject"
Colonel Benton was silent, and, as he says,
Unified" As he left the room, talking with
the President elect on ether subjects,
he said to himself ''You will soon feel the
thunderbolt.'' The thunderbolt fell in May,
| 1887, and the effects of it were felt in the
pockets of almost every voter during the next
! four years; and it was through the pockets of
many of them that their understandings were
! reached.
| ITO be continued tomorrow