University of Virginia Library

14. LETTER XIV.

Major Downing's Proclamation, in did of the President's,
against the Banks.

I, Major J. Downing, of the 2d Brigade
of Downingville Militia, and second best man
in the Goverment (I and the Gineral bein
pretty much the hull on't), thinkin that the
last Proclamation agin Biddle and the Bank
han't got reasons enuff in it—give out this,
my Proclamation, by way of a Clincher.

The times are now gittin pretty squally,
and if we don't look out sharp, things will go
all to smash, and now is the time for all on
you to back me and the Gineral. We have
been now nigh upon five years at work,
nockin down abuses, and still things don't go
exactly to our notion. We have taken away
all the offices from the opposition folks; still
some on 'em manage to git money to live on
somewhere else. We have taken away the
printin from them, and gin it all to our folks;

still they keep up printin other papers, and
we can't manage to choak them off no how,
but they will keep jawin, and twittin on us;
they won't print none of our notices, but keep
all the while writin and printin their own,
and try to make folks think that Webster, and
McDuffy, and Adams, and Sargent, and Clay,
and Binny, and Everett, and Gallatin, and a
raft more of such kinder fellows, know more
than Mr. Van Buren, Mr. Kendle, Mr. Cambrelling,
and Major Barry, and such good
friends of our'n, and all as true as steel too.
But I and the Gineral have found out all
about it.

Biddle and the Bank are the varments,—
and if they are not put down there is no tellin
the harm they'll do us. Biddle's Bank ain't
like other Banks—evry thing it does goes
pretty much agin us; and most of the other
Banks do all they can to help us. There is
one at Albany called the Regency Bank; now
that is the right kind of Bank; it loans money
only to our friends, and gits its thumb on all
the Banks it can, and makes them do so too;
and if they don't they put the screws on 'em
—and that's the reason why our folks are so
strong in Albany; and if the United States

Bank was managed jest like the Regency
Bank, we should all on us be much better off.
And what was the United States Bank made
for? Didn't Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe,
and Mr. Adams, when they were Presidents,
jest go into it whenever they pleased, and
shovel out the money to their friends, and the
opposition folks didn't git one cent; and now
that Gineral Jackson is President, and who
has done more for the country than all the
Presidents, and Ginerals, and Commodores,
and the whole bunch on 'em ever did, when
he wants to do a trifle for his friends in the
same way, they won't let him—`Well then,'
says he, `I'm the Goverment, and I want
my money;' and then they turn and print
books and speeches, saying the Gineral ain't
the Goverment; and try to make folks think
the Secretary of the Treasury and Congress,
and not the Gineral, has the right to take
away the money. Now the Gineral don't
care no more for Congress than he does for
the Secretary of the Treasury, and he'll sarve
them jest as he has him. We don't want
them; they only make trouble, unless they do
jest as we tell 'em. We want money, and
must have it. Some of our folks who have
been working hard for us hain't got any, and
we have got no more offices to give 'em.

The rich folks have pretty much all the
money, but as we can out vote 'em, they ought
to shell out—and that's pretty much Mr. Van
Buren's notion too. And his notion is, too,
that there ought to be a convention, to nominate
a President, jest like that one a spell ago
in Baltimore. One man is enuff for each
State, only get the right one, and then vote
by majority, jest as George Creamer did when
he gave six and thirty votes for old Pennsylvany.
It won't do to wait too long—its only
three years more afore we shall want another
President, and we ought to spring to it now
jest as the Gineral says about the Bank—that's
got only three years more to run, and he is
afraid it can't wind up as safely by that time
as it can now, and so he's goin to give it a
twist on 1st October—and we mean to follow
it up till we nock it all to bits, unless Biddle
resigns, and if he does, the Gineral says he'll
make me President of the Bank, and give it a
new charter, and then we'll git all our folks
in and make things go better there.

There is no use in Congress, or anybody
else to try and corner the Gineral—he has

thrashed double their number afore this, and
if they do try to drive him in a corner, it will
turn out just like a skunkin frolic—the foremost
dog will get the worst on't.