CONTAINING THE POLITICAL AND LITERARY PORTIONS WASHINGTON, D. C. PUBLISHED BY LANGTREE AND O'SULLIVAN. 1838. ) EVERY age appears to have its predominant characteristic from which may be derived its special designation, in its place in the long series of the centuries. Without inquiring into the propriety of the names which the different metals have given to former ages-whether the iron, the brass, the silver, or the gold-none will question the right of the present to the style and title-emphatically and par excellence of the PAPER AGE. Under this name its history, presenting so many tremendous convulsions of society, accompanied with so many remarkable phenomena, is yet to be written, for the astonishment of posterity. Under this name, the chronicle of the nineteenth century, so wise in its generation,' is to record one of the most extraordinary instances of the gullibility of mankind, on a vast scale, to be found in that curious volume, the History of Human Humbug. It might be supposed, indeed, that if any thing short of a voice from the dead would awaken the mind of the whole people to the real character of this stupendous modern fraud upon the industry of the mass of society, the history of the past few years would have accomplished that object. We regret, however, to have to confess, that there appears much reason to fear that but very imperfect advantage is about to be taken, by the community, of the lesson and the opportunity for a reform of our banking system, afforded by the recent crisis. It is greatly to be lamented that the subject has been brought into the arena of our general politics, and the pernicious consequences of this unholy connection will probably long make themselves felt. That there have existed some radical defects in the system, some essential principle of evil or other, is generally admitted by all; as also the necessity of considerable salutary reforms' in it, to save the community from the future recurrence of the sufferings which have grown out of it,--yet very little progress seems to have been made in the settlement of public opinion upon any definite ideas of the nature and extent of those reforms, or of the time and mode of their application; and there really appears great reason to apprehend that little or nothing may in fact be done. If the resumption of specie payments shall take place at an early day-as is rendered probable, at least in a portion of the Union, by the disposition evinced by the banks of New York-the business of the country, after the exhaustion and sickness consequent upon its recent state of intoxication, wil} soon resume its wonted course. In that case little or nothing, comparatively, will be done. The banking interest, if it shall prove sufficiently powerful to chain down into subjection the throes and struggles of the body politic in the very height of the convulsion, while itself under all the disadvantage and odium of a state of suspension, will scarcely have much to apprehend when that period shall have passed, the impotence of legal restraints and penalties upon its enormous powers proved, and the spirit of resistance on the part of the public shall have subsided, in the same degree with the restoration of its own undisputed ascendency. By one of those unconscious instincts of sagacity which are always observed in the action of great interests, when endangered by the consequences of their own vicious principles, and which operate with all the directness of deliberate design and method, it has eagerly thrown itself into the arms of one of the great parties of the country for safety and support; while it has been not less eagerly met half-way by that party, glad to welcome so powerful an ally, to aid the siege in which it is engaged upon the ascendency of the Democratic party in the administration of the government. The consequence we see. The peculiar advocacy of that interest is taken up by that party, and urged with a clamor that astounds and bewilders the country. The Administration is falsely charged with a design to destroy it. The most preposterous ideas are set afloat, and forced along with a vehemence which keeps them in circulation in despite of their own plain absurdity. The credulity of party spirit is taxed to the utmost, and proves its appetite to be really without limits, ever growing with what it feeds on. The natural timidity of moneyed interests is played upon, till it is excited to a point of panic utterly senseless and irrational; and the strong hold which the banking interest possesses upon the whole business community-from the state of perpetual dependence generated by the credit system on which all its operations have been based for so long a series of years-is strained to such a degree, as to array four-fifths of those portions of the community in the front ranks of the bitterest opposition to the Administration,-to the clearest and soundest ideas of economical truth,—and to a policy which really is directed to their own best interests. Meanwhile the true issues in the contest are changed or lost sight of. The public mind is confused amidst the dust and clamor of the party strife. The Opposition insist-in spite of all truth, justice, and argument-that the issue is between the preservation and the destruction of banks, between the continuance of the credit system' and a compulsory and exclusive metallic currency. Every argument directed against the abuses of the system they greet with a shout of execration, as an impious blow aimed at its sacred existence. They will not even tolerate any neutrality on the question. They will not even permit the Federal Government to disconnect itself altogether from the contending parties—to stand aloof from the turmoil and the danger of the struggle-to give up that vast source of political influence-to collect, keep and disburse its own revenues by its own independent action--to use a small fraction of the large additional stock of specie which its policy has brought into the country, for the purpose of securing future stability and uniformity in its fiscal action,-at the same time that they insist that paper is a better currency than specie! That the government is unwilling, after its late severe experience, again to lend it the use of the public revenue, again to connect itself with the fluctuations and dangers of speculation and commerce, again to enter into an alliance with moneyed interests, so pernicious in its effects upon both—is regarded as an attack, as exhibiting a ruthless determination to destroy! They will admit of but two sides to the question--its two extremes-tolerating neither a middle ground, nor a fair neutrality, and insist that all who are not with the banks are against them Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die! Meanwhile, all calm and candid discussion of the abuses and evils of the system, and of the most proper and practicable reforms to be applied to them, is drowned amidst the general party outcries of Executive corruption, usurpation, tyranny, loco-focoism, &c., &c. While the admission of the necessity of some reform or other is generally made, all specification is carefully shunned--nay, treated as treason. In short, it is perfectly apparent, that if this plan of opposition, to overthrow a party in power and seize upon their vacant places, is to succeed, nothing will, in point of fact, be done. The crisis will pass and be forgotten; and the nation will have to pass through yet another cycle of the operation of the system, through another similar round of revival, activity, enterprise, speculation, expansion and explosion, before it shall have reached that point of final maturity for reform, which must yet inevitably come,--though if we now neglect to take the favorable tide at its flood, for what period we may have to wait on the banks, in patience and long suffering, is not to be calculated. That the States are not yet prepared to apply the hand of reform, |