7597. Citizens Bank (New Orleans, LA)

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The New Orleans "Louisianian" of the 21st speaks of the suspension of "The Citizens' Bank" in the following terms: "The Citizen's Bank has followed in the train of the United States' Bank, and stopped payment with some hundred thousand dollars of government funds in her possession, which she is bound by her contract to pay in hard money. What is to be the result? We most sincerely pity the situation of this once honored institution and deeply regret the necessity which has compelled the worthy and respectable men who compose her board of direction, to adopt a measure which must be wholly repugnant to their feelings and their notions of right. The suspension of this bank under such circumstances is conclusive proof that the measure was forced upon the directors by inevitable necessity and it further convinces us that they will leave nothing undone to place the institution in its former proud and honorable position as soon as possible. We are unwilling to look back -and yet the mind involuntarily recurs to the suspension of 1837, when the financial condition of the country was much more disastrous than it is at present-but the Citizens' Bank then stood erect and eminent amid the paper ruins that surrounded it, and notwithstanding the difficulties which pressed down the other banks, continued to meet all its obligations as promptly as if nothing had happened. A change has since come over it for the worse. into which it is not our present business to inquire. The fact is, some of our Banking Institutions have been conducted in a wretched manner-and none as much so as the Bank of the U. S. That has led the way to the present suspension.-But the whole system requires a thorough reform. As Mr. Buchanan declared in the Senate of the US in 1837, during the previous suspension, so every intelligent man must say now, with more force than ever: "The Banks, by their refusal to pay specie, have now placed themselves within the power of the State Governments. They have forfeited their charters, and it now remains for the different Legislatures to decide upon what terms they shall be restored. It will depend upon the wisdom and firmness of these Legislatures, whether we shall have a sound paper currency in time to come, proportioned in amount to the wants of the people, and placing the banks themselves in a secure condition, or whether we shall again be overwhelmed with a deluge of paper money, with all its attendant evils. If they will but secure a specie basis for our paper circulation, by prohibiting the issue of bank notes, at first under $10, and after, under 20; if they will render the stockholders of banks personally responsible, at least, for the amount of notes which they may issue; if they will limit the dividends of the banks to a reasonable profit on the investment of the stockholders; if they will require the banks to keep a just proportion of specie in their vaults, compared with their circulation and deposites; and above all, if they will adjust the whole amount of Bank notes to be issued to the wants of the people, upon principles which have been sanctioned by experience, so as to prevent ruinous fluctuations in the amount of our currency; then, indeed, the evils which we have suffered will be compensated by the benefits we are destined to enjoy. But I confess I dread the result. We are a very strange people. The lessons of experience make but a feeble impression on our minds. We rise with so much buoyancy from our misfortunes that when they have passed away, they are instantly forgotten. Should the banks resume specie payments before or shortly after the next meeting of our State Legislatures, and the current begin to run smoothly again, I fear that no such changes will be made in the existing bank charters, and that we must await the event of another crisis, which would then be inevitable." It has happened but will it happen in vain? Will not every sagacious Patriot rouse himself-put his shoulders to the wheel-and assist in preventing a repetition of the same calamity? Reform-a thorough reform. is now the only remedy which we ought to seek. We have tried palliatives long enough. The N. York E Post ridicules the Manifesto of the Philadelphia Banks as "a wretched and stammering apology. It says, "If the United States Bank and its followers, had managed their affairs with half the prudence which the New York banks have done, they might have avoided the embarrassments in which they have entangled themselves and thousands of merchants If they had abstained from engaging in cotton speculations, which was an act of bad faith and an abuse of their privileges, -if they had not risked and lost their capital in vast loans to speculators, like the loan to Judge Hitchcock of Mobile, who borrowed $800,000, a fiftieth part of the whole capital of the Bank of the U S, and resisted its repayment on the plea of usury, if, by judiciously diminishing their transactions, they had admonished their customers to contract their business, in order to meet the approaching and inevitable change of times. if they had not entangled their affairs with those of the Southwestern banks, and encouraged those wretched institutions to plunge deeper into the gulf of bankruptcy-if they had abstained from the folly of attempting, by means of post notes, to extend their transactions, already too far extended, they would have found it easy to continue the fulfilment of their engagements." New Orleans has shown her generous feelings by transmitting more than $6000 to Mobile for the relief of the sufferers by fire. She herself has been threatened by incendiaries. Two persons have been arrested on the 15th in the act of setting fire to houses in the 2d municipality-one of whom calls himself a doctor. But N Orleans is on the alert, organizing guards, night patrols, &c, &c. Another attempt has been made to fire Natchez, during the day, whilst most of the citizens were at dinner; but the population were instantly on the spot, on the ringing of the alarm bell, and the flames were extinguished. In Charleston, a tire broke out last week in the steam mill, owned by Mr. Jugnot, nearly opposite the termination of State Street. The mill was reduced to ashes; along with the large grocery occupied by Mr. Thane, on the East corner of Anson and Market Streets: "This building together with two smaller were successively blown up as they caught, and by this means and the great exertions of the Fire Companies, the mischief was limited to this corner. Had the wind blown in any other direction, the destruction would probably have been greater. The number of buildings destroyed was altogether six, all of wood, and with the exception of the corner building, of inconsiderable value." ### FOR THE ENQUIRER. Remarks on Mr. Wm. Rives' Speech at the Louisa Dinner. Dedicated to the Republicans of Virginia [No 111] In my last number I have generally made use of the third person when speaking of Mr Rives; I now, however, prefer, to address myself to him directly and at once When in an elaborate defence which has taken its author several months to broach and prepare-a vindication of his past political course which was doubtless intended by him as an unanswerable reply to all the charges which have been brought against him-when in such a document I say, we find not only the most contemptible sophistry, but a total perversion and misrepresentation of the most prominent facts and recent occurrences, what shall we think of such a defence, its author and the innocence of the accused? Federalism, like many other evil things, undergoes no material changes from the lapse of years. It has, besides, some characteristics so deeply interwoven with its composition, that they have in no one instance been departed from by its votaries. Hypocrisy, slander, and unscrupulous lying, are the chief pillars which have sustained Federal imposture from the days of the elder Adams to our own And indeed, it seems to have been decreed, that while Federalism was to be endowed with the admirable faculty of casting off old, and readily adopting new names, still that it should ever continue to be in substance the same deadly enemy to Republicanism and the Rights of man. However, it has one attribute, perhaps, more prominent than the rest. I of course allude to the propensity which it has always manifested of raising false alarms, that by keeping public opinion in a state of constant excitement, and in apprehension of imaginary dangers, it may the better tyrannise and hold the mastery over the people. In by gone days, when Alien and Sedition Laws were let loose upon us-when the freedom of the Press was invaded, and the purity of the Constitution itself was violated, what pretext did Federalism then employ to hallow and justify these treacherous encroachments? Why, base falsehoods were pro-wed that the country