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Galveston, March 10, 1842. [From Kendalls Expositor.] THE BANKING SYSTEM. No. 1. Experience, that ever safe though severe teacher, is fast opening the eyes of the people in relation to the vices and evils of the Banking System. Never was there a time when the minds of men were in a better condition to give heed to sound argument or more ready to concur in conclusions in reference to a subright which deeply involves the rights, ject interests and morals of the whole community Look at the ruins which lay scattered specie Banks around. payments The in general 1837, suspension when the of had in circulation about two hundred millions of dollars in promises to pay, de preciated the whole mass about ten per a some fifteen cent., and millions was equivalent of dollars to upon tax the of people, the second over more was its instantaneously than half suspension, the Union, laid and extening collected.- within scope a repetition of the same species of tax to the amount of eight or ten mill ions. All this was born patiently by the people; for the banks having most of the presses and political men in their interest or in their power, persuaded the was to the nocessary sufferers the public that good. this step In all d States, the Banks took the government d into their hands, and through the Legislatures granted themselves all the indulwas of threatened, gences they because desired. the Revolution Departments the General Government resisted this Bank usurpation, and insisted upon obedience to the constitution and laws in its pecuniary transactions. This stand, as every observing man now knows, by ar raying against it the army of banks and bankrupts, was the principal cause of the overthrow of the late administration in 1840. Year after year have the banks obtained sometimes indulgencies bargaining from the State for them Legislatures, with raco of Statesmen who dared not attempt to raise by honest means, the funds to meet State liabilities, but more often ex. acting them without pretence of an equiv. alent. To what consequences has this surrender of the government to the banks led? The were 10 susto exscenes swinplude,exhibiting pend Missippi payment Banks and the first of the fraud totally first and dling never before exceeded. Not warned by this example, the other states still to giving quietly fraud acquiesced time in the mature Bank dominion, its plans, and leaving the Banks to blow up at their leisure, when their managers should have swindled to the utmost both the people and the stockholders. Look at that tremendous ruin, fearful to enough United States. be sublime, If widows the lateBank and orphans of the a from they have have not the blackened been been driven left starving wall by of their foreign within dwellings enemy them. Look at the Schuylkill Bank, the Girard Bank and the Bank of Pennsylvania. In addition to the plunder of the people by the depreciation of millions of dollars in circulation, there has been lost to the more stockholders alone, than in the forty city millions of Philadelphia of dollars. scenes are on a In every portion presented of the Union smaller similar scale. It our people fraud cannot and and ce mismanagement, stockholders doubted that of the in banks,through losses Repub- of the have within a few years past, amounted to more than NE HUNDRED MIL. LIONS OF DOLLARS. To this conclusion any man will be led who reflects a moment on upon notes and of but about by bank the suspension in the their losses hands, of breaking the brought people and utter hilation Banks, and of Bank the impairing anniStocks, produced by similar callses. But this is not all They increased the currency of the to about t of dollars in while at we an unusual hundred the same time millions country had paper, quaning the money specie cheap in circulation, and increasing thereby price makof all reasonable at dred Now, property millions they have beyond of withdrawn dollars least bounds. a hunof the cur rency, at same more than half and the Union, the have, time, by paper continued in circulaof this tion suspension, tremendous altogether. banished reduction The specie natural of from effect cy as raised low is the the proper reduction level of prices they so were the much curren- be above, a annihiating the fortunes of men who are somewhat in debt and embarrassing all kinds of business.
