The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1886-08-19

numerous persons connected by minor and
less conspicuous agencies and employments
with the banking system; nothing of the
thousands of depositors; nothing of the nu-
merous expectants who anxiously await the
hour when bank favors will be meted out to
them, in reward for their clamorous support;
nothing of the long train of obscure and tndf-
rect dependents. I have said nothing of the
influence which this system exerts over the
numerous persons connected with other in
stitutions and companies, incorporated
throughout the country for purposes Of in
ternal improvement and other objects, by
means of loans to aud stocks held in those
institutions and companies. OF this vast, in
definite multitude I have said nothing;
and yet IL seems that, without these,
the stockholders, borrowers, cashiers, clerks
and lawyers alone amount, at the low
est possible estimate, TO the number of
two hundred and forty-fve thousand men,
while the entire voting population of the
Union can not exceed sixteen hundred thou
sand persons.
And now I ask, what man, who has a dollar
of property, arm to labor, or a wish to be
free, can behold this colossal power stand
frowning on him without feeling tine terror
of its presence? Do you suppose that such a
power can exist in such a country as this,
amidst the furious collision of conflicting
princip piles and exasperated parties, without
being seized upon and perverted by ambition9
II this be your opinion, If you can not think
that there is in ambition ana avarice an in
nate tendency to coalesce for q common OBJ
iect, 1 ask you TO look back for the last six
years and forward to the time to come. What
measure of practical legislation, apart from
the abstract principles upon which the two
parties stand, now divides them? The tariff,
internal improvements, notification, these
questions all repose among the things that
have been. And yet the aristocracy convulse
the land with their struggles for power. Ask
them what law, if they had this power, they
would repeal or modify, and IL they answer
you, and that sincerely, they will tell you none.
ASK them what measure, in such an event,
they would propose, what law enact, and they
will tell you, law to charter a National
Bank. And why are they q party in favor
of a National Bank? 1t is because National
Bank is in favor of them. Why are the local
banks in favor of this party? 1t is because
this party are also in favor of local banks
How is it that these banks are in favor of a
National Bank? 1t is because they are all
parts of the same system, and because such
an addition would strengthen and perpetuate
that system. How does it happen that the
Federal party and the banking system har-
monize in every particular? It is because one
could not subsist without the othe other; be-
cause one nature is common to both; because
one are aristocrats, the other aristocraIic.
Bank charters are privileges conferred upon
money, and which give it, as stock, produc-
tive quality over and above that of all other
property. These privileges result from the
Legislative exercise of political power, and
the banks, therefore, become: by the necessi-
ties of their nature, partisans in the struggle
to acquire that power, in order to guard them
oa1x he - lnK1~
feited by abuse. Banks are politicians, be-
cause they live upon political gratuities, and
it has not been among the smallest of these
gratuities that they have hitherto enjoyed
the temporary use of all the revenues of
the Federal and State Governments of the
Union.
Thus far, fellow-citizens, have sought to
illustrate the natural sfiniIies by which the
Federal party and the banking system tend
to unite against the democracy of numbers.
And now shall point your attention to the
last instance. and peculiar manner, in which
this union was openly formed and proclaimed
to the world. You can not have forgotten
that, about the time when the recharter of
the Bank of the United States began first to
be agitated, the most distinguished leader of
the opposition expressed and published q
think it was in the city of CincinnatD a very
after this President Jackson suggested his
opinion unfavorable to the bank; and now
mark what followed. In an instant the same
leader, he who had, in ISL, pronounced like
bank unconstitutional and dangerous to
public liberty, not only unfurled his flag in
its cause, but drew after him the whole body
of his party and the entire rabble of the local
banks. Thus was the whole banking system
mbodied in the hands of a political party, of
port from that day to this. Good faith has
been mutually observed. The system has
been liberal and true to the politicians, and
the politicians grateful to the system and
courageous In the conflict for its life.
Jackson said No. and in q moment the
whole aristocracy of the county, in all the
ecstasy of a new discovery, cried out yes; the
Bank of the United States is necessary to reg
ulate the currency. by checking the increase
of local banks and the excesses of those that
already exist The local banks themselves
chimed in the cry and petitioned in favor of
that regulator, whose President had declared
he could crush them at will. But why demand
a regulator? Why such q regulator as this?
By so doing the local banks said to the peo-
pie of the States: We have been chartered by
your people-our privileges are great; 1t is in
our nature to abuse them; to defraud you,
who have not the power to check our rspac-
ity and protect yourselves; and, therefore,
the Federal Government must place a master
over us. Most honest confessioni Most PEN
itential deIinQuentsI They wanted a master;
yes, but what a masteri A master in every
respect of the same nature with them
selves-one whose like tendency to excess,
to rapine and plunder; one whose con-
genial spirit was less calculated to lead
a reformation of the currency, than to head
that servile insurrection of banks, that we
now witness, against the public law.
But, fellow-citIzens, let us see the sincerity
of the Federal leaders In protesting the want
of a regulator to check the increase and re-
strain 9he exec ses of local banks. At the
very time when they were making this pro-
fession and proclaiming, both in and out of
Congress, the inevitable ruin that must be-
fall the country from an increase of those
banks, they were then, at that very time,
voting a party, almost to a man, in most
Legislatures of the Union for any and every
bank for which charter was demanded
These very men, who, as members of the
State Legislatures, would spend the day In
discussion to prove the necessity of q Ma
tional Bank, as a bar to the increase of
State Banks. would spend the night con-
sulting by what means they could most easily
obtain charters for additional banks on the
succeeding day against the opposition of the
Democratic party.
AS body they voted in favor of every char
ter that was presented, without inquiring as
to the necessity of such an institution at the
point proposed. If their numbers were in
sufficient to carry new charters by their own
strength alone they addressed themselves for
aid to the personal or local interests of a few
of the opposing party over whom such oon-
siderations might be supposed to prevail. So
determined were they to glut the country
with banks, and confer upon them powers
unrestricted, that they opposed in mass every
amendment offered to the pending charters
which could in any degree curb the excesses
of the banks or protect the people against
their rapacity. Thus did they present to ad-
venturers and Spectators the strongest in
ducements to apply for additional banks or
for an increase of stock in those that already
existed. They saw that the supply tended
but to increase the demand; that the liberal
ity of the privileges conferred and the facility
14 EnSr fhar.