University of Virginia Library

24. LETTER XXIV.

The Major's View of the State of the Country and
Money Concerns—Everybody's Concerns—History
of the U. S. Bank—A Conestoga Wagon—Its Driver
and Horses—Other Wagons—Their Men and
Beasts—Steamboats and Banks not different—
Skunks and Politicians—Patriotic Appeal, especially
addressed to Men with Wives and Children.

[Major Downing, in his letter of December 27th, after mentioning
the fact of his having read his views on the subject of the
Bank, and the Deposites, to the Cabinet, engaged to send a copy
of the document to this paper for publication. A delay of some
days occurred before we received it. This, we understand, was
caused by a wish that the Cabinet might have an opportunity to
re-examine the case, and a hope that they might unite in opinion
on this thorny matter. Having waited some time for the accomplishment
of this important object, the Major became convinced
that the present Cabinet was far from being a `Unit,'
and considered it useless to wait any longer; and he therefore
fulfilled his undertaking by sending us the document alluded to.]

OFFICIAL PAPER.

Read to the Cabinet, and Majors, Auditors, and Under-Secretaries,
and Sub-postmasters, and the rest of the Goverment,
on 26th day of December, A D. 1833—and printed for the
use of all the citizens from Downingville to New-Orleans,
along the seacoast, and up the Mississippi, and Missouri, and
so down the Lakes, and across by the Erie Canal to Albany,
and along by the middle rout over New-Jersey, Pensylvany,
and Maryland, to Washington—and away agin to all parts
of creation, and to everybody.

Gineral, and Gentlemen of the Cabinet,
and the rest on you here present, composin

the Goverment—I speak to you as a man
standin right between you and the people—
what I am goin to say ain't calculated to make
any on you change your opinion, so much as
to make you know mine—you have pretty
much all on you had your turn, and now
comes my turn—if any thing I say has sharp
corners and scrapes the skin a little, it is because
I hain't had time to file the edges
smooth. I'll give you my notions pretty
much as you get bread from the bakers, and
leave you to slice it or chunk it as best suits
you; and every man can butter his own slice
jest to please his fancy—that ain't my business
so much as it is hisn.

We are met here, not only to fix on some
plan to get the country out of trouble, but to
see how it got into trouble—and I am goin to
say a little on both pints. When a chimbly
smokes at the rong eend, with the wind at
north-east, some folks may content themselves
with openin windows and doors to let the
smoke out; but my notion is that the safest
plan is to see into the cause on't, and correct
it, so that the chimbly will only smoke at the
right eend, let the wind blow any way.

Now there is a few things we must look

into a leetle, and then we will know more
about 'em, and I am goin to examin—

What kind of a crittur the Bank of the
United States raly is;

Whether its natur is to do good or evil to
the country; and then wind up with

Matters and things in general.

Twenty years ago the country was in
trouble, and fill'd up with all kinds of Bank
paper—nigh upon as bad as old Continental—
and a good deal was a leetle worse. If any
body ain't old enuff to remember that time,
and wants to see what kind of mony I mean,
let him go to the Treasury, and Mr. Taney,
can show him nigh a million and a half of
dollars, not worth the cost of the paper and
ink used every year in makin a report on't:
but this is only a drop compar'd to what
would be now there of the same kind of stuff
if it hadn't ben for the Bank of the United
States. All our wise folks of that day said
we must have a Bank of the United States,
and a good big one—one strong enuff to do
the work well, and to clear out all this trash,
and so this Bank was made, and the first
thing was, as there was a very little rale
mony in the country, the Bank went and

bo't a good jag on't in Europe, and went to
work here clearin away jest as we do our
fields in the spring.

It was a pretty dirty job to do so, I tell you,
and the Bank didn't get through with it without
scratchin, and smuttin its fingers pretty
considerable; and that warn't the worst on't
for the Bank. The Government made the
Bank agree to pay fifteen hundred thousand
dollars for the privilege of doing this work,
and made it agree to take care of the people's
mony in all parts of the country, and to pay
it here and there wherever the Government
told 'em to, and to pay all the pensions, and
to do evry thing in the money way, without
chargin any thing for it to the Government.
This was a pretty tuff bargin for the Bank—
for all it got in return was, to have the keepin
of the mony, and when the Goverment
didn't want it, the Bank might lend it out.
It took a good many years afore the Bank got
things to work smooth. It was like a whoppin
big wagon that wanted a good many
horses to drag it, and as it had a valable
freight in it, it wanted none but the best kind
of horses—rale Conestogas—and it warn't
every one who knew how to drive such a

team. The owners of this wagon found
that out—for some of the first that they got
came plaguy nigh oversetting it. So to rights
they got Squire Biddle. I suppose they
thought that seein that the folks in Pensylvany
have the best and strongest horses, and
the biggest wagons, they ought to know best
how to guide 'em. Well, they made a pretty
good guess that time—for ever since they told
the Squire to take the lines, they hain't lost a
linch-pin or broke a strap—and there warn't
no complaints made agin him by the folks on
the road: on the contrary, all the other wagoners
liked the Squire amazinly; he was
always ready to give 'em a lift when he found
them in the mud, and whenever they got
short of provender, the Squire never refused
to turn out some of his to keep their horses
from sufferin. Every thing was goin on
better and better, and everybody said at home
and abroad there warn't such a team in all
creation. Well, about four years ago we
begun to pick a quarrel with the Squire, and
it's been goin on every year pretty much after
this fashion. The first go off, some of our
folks wanted the Squire to change some of his
leadin horses—they said the breed warn't
right—he ought to put on the lead some
Albany trotters—that they were the best
horses on the lead he could have. The
Squire didn't like to change—he said the
horses he had knew the road as well as he
did, and they wouldn't bolt nor kick up, and
when they came to up-hill work he could depend
on 'em.

Then agin our folks wanted the Squire to
change harness—they said they had new
patent collars—and a horse could pull as
much agin with 'em as with the old-fashion'd
collars. Well, the Squire didn't like that notion
nother. So to rights they told the Squire
he must give up the lines—well, that he
wouldn't do, he said, without orders from the
owners of the team—they had appointed him,
and so long as they kept him there, he would
go along and do his duty, jest as he had done—
and it warn't right to keep stoppin him every
day on the road, and tryin to make him try
new plans.

And with that, all our folks made a regular
battle on the Squire—some took away out of
his wagon a part of the bags and boxes, and
divided it round among the drivers of other
wagons, who was mixin in the scuffle too,

and away they crack'd off with it. Some
undertook to cut the Squire's traces; they
thought they was only leather and rope traces;
but the Squire was too deep for 'em, for his
traces was all chains kivered with leather,
and so they spil't their jack-nives. Some
went on ahead and rolled stones in the road,
and dug deep holes, and tried all they could
to make the Squire upset, and threw stones
and mud at him and his horses; but the
Squire kept on, his horses didn't flinch, and
as they had dragged the big wagon over
worse roads in their day, they went along
without accident. Well, now it turns out
that all the wagons that drove off so, with a
part of the Squire's load, are in trouble, for
the first piece of muddy road they all stuck
fast, and there they are now—one wants the
other to give him a pull and a lift; but they
say they all want liftin—the Squire has jest
come up with 'em—and now they want
him to hitch on to 'em and drag 'em all out
together; but he says that's impossible, the
most he can do is to take back the load they
took from his wagon, and then perhaps they
can git out of the mud; but it is more than
his team can do, and he won't run the risk
of breakin his harness or injurin his horses to
drag 'em all out together. Well, now that's
jest about the condition of things, and the
longer they remain so the worse it will be—
the longer horses and wagons stand knee
and hub deep in mud, the less able they'll be
to git out on't.

And now I'll leave 'em there a spell, and
we'll take a look into the natur of the Bank,
and what it raly is; for to hear some folks
talk about it, one would think it was a most
shockin monster, and that it was pretty much
nothin else but Squire Biddle, when it is no
more the Squire than that big wagon is, not
a grain more. Look at this long list of names;
well, these are the owners of the Bank; here
we see, in the first place, the nation owns one-fifth,
and the rest is scattered round, as you
see here, among an everlastin batch of folks
all about this country, and some in forin
countries; and I am glad to see on the list
here, old widows, and old men, and trustees
of children, who hain't got no parents livin,
and all our own people, they put their money
in the stock of this Bank for safe-keepin—not
to speculate—and jest so with the innocent
foreigners, and the best on't is, they have paid

our folks a pretty high premium for every
dollar on't. Well, these are the folks, then,
that compose the Bank. Now what way do
they want this Bank managed? The business
of the Bank is to loan mony, and is jest,
for all the world, like any rich man whose
business is to loan out his mony—is it his
interest to dabble in politics, or to let politicians
dabble with him? Not an attom on't. I
never knew one of your rale politicians who
ever could pay his debts; and they ain't the
kind of folks people like to deal with, any way,
who have got money to loan—they know
that talkin politics, and gittin things into
snarls jest to answer party purposes, ain't the
way to pay interest nor principal nother, and
politicians in a Bank are the worst folks in
the world for the owners of the Bank, for the
most on 'em hain't got money of their own to
lend, but they are plaguy ready to loan other
folks' mony to brother politicians of the same
party.

No, no, a man who has got his mony loan'd
out (and it's jest so with a Bank) wants to see
everybody busy and industrious, and mind
their business, and increase their propperty,
for then they will be able to pay interest

and principal too; they don't like to see
things all mixed up with politics, and people
quarrellin and disputin, and when they do, they
git their mony back in their pockets agin as
soon as they can, for they know that politics
ain't profitable business.

Then it comes to this, that if the Bank is
what I have said it is (and its nothin else), it
ain't such a monster as some folks try to make
us think it is; and instead of bein a dangerous
monster, I see, and I know everybody
else must see, who don't squint at it, but looks
it strait in the face—that its natur is jest like
the natur of any man who has got property
in the country, and that is to have every
thing go on in harmony, and with industry, and
with honesty, and accordin to law—no jangles
and tangles and talkin politics in porter-houses
and bar-rooms, hurrain for this man,
and pullin down that man—that kind of
work don't clear up new lands nor plough up
old ones, it don't keep the hammer goin, and
the wheels turnin; and don't pay interest nor
principal nother.

But some on you say the Bank has too
much power, and that Squire Biddle might do
a good deal of mischief if he would. Well

there is my old friend Capt. Elihu S. Bunker,
of the steamboat President, runnin twixt New-York
and Providence—he's got about sich another
monster—there is no tellin what a `dangerous
monopoly' of power that crittur's got in
that are boat. I was lookin into it when I came
on with him a spell ago, and he was showin me
how he managed it. If he was to fasten down
the kivers of them two mortal big copper kittles
he has got in his boat, and blow his bellesses
a spell, he would smash every thing for
more than 50 acres round—Does any body
want to know why he don't do it?—he has ben
in a steamboat as long now as the Bank's
ben goin, and hain't scalded nobody—but he
can do it in a minit if he chuses—Well, I'll
tell you why he don't—it ain't his interest,
and he don't own no more of the boat than
Squire Biddle does of the Bank—the owners of
the boat employ him to manage it, because they
know he understands his business.—He knows
if he didn't watch over their interest, they'd turn
him out—and jest so the owners of the Bank
would sarve Squire Biddle. And that ain't
all, Capt. Bunker knows, if he hurts anybody
with his boat, he'd run a chance of hurtin
himself too—he knows, too, that it is the interest
of his owners not to have any accidents
aboard any boat—for if people get scalded in
one steamboat, they keep clear of all on 'em
—and tho' some folks think Banks ain't like
steamboats, I can tell 'em that in the main
thing they are exactly alike—for unless folks
have got confidence in 'em, and feel safe in
'em, they ain't worth ownin—but when they
all go on and meet no accidents, they are pritty
good property—and the largest, and strongest,
and cleanest, and quietest, and best-managed,
git the most business.—Now I think that's
enuf about dangerous monopolies for a spell.

Let us now see what the Bank is about,
and what we've been about.

Deacon Goodenou has been in that Bank,
as one of its directors, off and on, ever since
it was a Bank, and I have heard him say fifty
times (and he's a man to be depended on) he
never heard a word about politics in it, till about
four years ago—and it all came from our
sending every year since that time some rale
politicians to help the other twenty directors
to manage the Bank—the first go off, the
Deacon says, they thought best to keep quiet,
and make no stir about it; for it was pretty
much like findin skunks in the cellar—the

best way was to let 'em alone, if they'd keep
there, and run the chance of their goin out,
when they found there warn't no eggs to suck
—but when they undertook to cum up-chamber,
and smell about in all the cubbords, it was
time to snub 'em—and then came trouble:
and that's jest about the way now; and the
Deacon says, and he's about right, that politicians
in a Bank are jest as bad as skunks in
the cellar—there ain't one grain of difference.

Some on you say we don't want a Bank
now: well, that may be so—but when I got up
this mornin, it was plagy chilly till I got my
coat on—now I am warm, and it may be I
don't need a coat—but I think if I take my
coat off, I'll feel chilly agin—and I am so certin
of this, I won't make a trial on't.

Some on you say, the owners of this Bank
hain't got no right to a recharter—they have
had it long enuf—and its time now to have
a new shuffle and cut: well, that ain't my notion,
and I'll tell you why—tho' this Bank
was chartered for twenty years, it had a good
right to believe we would renew its charter,
if it behaved well and did its duty—jest as a
Congressman has a right to expect his constituents
will send him to Congress agin if

he behaves well—and its a good way to
keep folks strait, and make 'em do their duty
—but if we are to nock this Bank down, and
have a new shuffle and a new cut, then I say
that them folks who make money out of a rise
of stock in the new Bank ought to pay the loss
that all these old folks and young children will
suffer by nocking down the old Bank—to say
nothin about the innocent foreigners who put
their money in this Bank, thinkin it was safe.
And let me tell you another thing—the longer
a Bank stands, and the older it gits, the better
folks abroad and at home like it—people who
have got money to lend don't like changes—
and particularly government changes. Would
any on you like to lend folks money in South
America? and do you think any of them
Goverments could make a Bank that folks
would have any confidence in? I don't think
they could—jest because they keep choppin
and changin every year.

Will any on you say that it ain't a good thing
for a country to make folks all about think it
is a safe one to lend money to? ain't good
credit worth nothin?

Well, how does any man in trade git credit,
and make folks think him safe to trust? Will

he break up his stand every year, and change
his business, and try new plans? I say that
ain't the way; and no man ever prospered
after that fashion; but when he finds things
go well with him, he hangs on; or else he
hain't got no wit in him.

Now, my notion is that none on us alone
can make folks all about creation think we are
safe folks to trust. But all on us together can
do so; and that is the reason a good big Bank
can manage this for us. Folks abroad know
the Bank, and the Bank know us; and so
we can manage things through the Bank better
than we can alone.

Some on you say it ain't right to pay interest
to foreigners—that when we git money
from foreigners, they keep drainin us of interest.
Well, that is all chalk and water. Now
I know we have got an everlastin new country
to clear up yet, and if an honest industrious
man can git a few hundred dollars lent
to him, he can go and buy a good many
acres, and clear it up, and sell it to these very
foreigners, who are all the while coming out
here to settle among us, and they pay fifty
times more for it than the land first cost: and
so our folks go on borrowin, and can well

afford to pay interest, and find themselves
in a few years with money to lend too. And
as long as this business goes on, I, for one, am
willing to say to foreigners, as the Cape Cod
fisherman says to the fish, when he gits on the
hook, and is pullin him in—`So long as you
hold on one eend, I will 'tother.' But folks
abroad who have money to lend don't know
our folks who go on new land; and a good
many on old land nother. But they know our
Bank, and our Canals, and Railroads, and we
sell 'em the stock, and make 'em pay good
premiums too: and our folks can lend their
money to our farmers. But if we go on, and
nock down this Bank when its charter is out,
and bring trouble on the country, foreigners
will say, `Aha! there's trouble there!'—back
they come with their stock, and git their money,
and keep it; and all our prosperity is
nock'd in the head! We charter'd this Bank
for twenty years, and so we do Canal Companies,
and Railroad Companies; but did we
mean when the time was up, to nock 'em all
up too, and say we don't want no Bank, nor a
Canal, nor a Railroad? It ain't common
honesty to say so; and I won't shuffle and
cut with you after that fashion; for make
what I might by a new shuffle, I would be
asham'd to look one of these innocent foreigners
in the face—to say nothin of this long
list of widows, and orphans, and trustees
of estates, and old folks: many on 'em, when
they bought the stock at a high premium, I
suppose never thought about the charter, or
how long it had to run, but trusted to the
Goverment. And now if you can chizzle
them out of their property, as you will by
puttin down this Bank, jest to git a new shuffle
and cut at a new one—without turnin as red
as a beet when you meet 'em, I for one say I
can't, and I won't.

And now I'm most done—if I have trod on
any one's toes, it ain't so much my fault as
hisen; for I tread the strait line, and tread
ony on toes that stick out beyend the line, and
that's too often the case with folks now-a-days
in office.

I've tell'd you now pretty much my notions;
and I tell you for the last time you
have made a mistake, and that's no disgrace
to any man unless he tries to stick to it after
he knows he has made it. If you don't know
how to git the country out of the scrape
you've got it in, the people will tell you pretty

quick, or I ain't no hand at guessin. I have
now done my duty—If the people don't do
theirn it ain't my fault. If they say my notions
are right, they'll act on 'em; if they say
they are wrong, then things will go on as
they now go, and I hope they won't git worse
—but that I won't promise. If things come
to the worst, I shall suffer as little as any on
'em, for I hain't got no wife and children to
support (and I am sorry for those who have,
if things are to go as they now go), I can cut
my fodder pretty much anywhere.

But I love my country, ev'ry acre on't, and
it goes agin my grain to see any part on't
suffer. And I know all this sufferin comes
from party politics—this same party politics
that has driv all our wisest and best men out
of office; and now to keep together, wants to
git hold of the big wagon and all the money
in it.

My dander is up, and I had best stop now—
for the more I think on't, and the more I write
about it, the more wrathy I git. So no more
at present,

[We have received a letter, which we publish with much satisfaction,
from the north part of this State, and accompanying
it, a fine specimen of domestic manufacture in the form of an
axe, as a present to our highly esteemed and invaluable friend
Major Downing. We take this mode of informing our distant
correspondents of the safe arrival of their tribute to the Major's
public worth, and conveying to them the assurance that it will
be faithfully delivered to the person for whom it is designed.
There is no such thing as calculating the extent of good which
one patriotic and intelligent individual can accomplish, when he
honestly devotes his time and talents to the advancement of the
public welfare. The important truths and the sound political
principles which Major Downing has given to his country
through the medium of this paper have been more extensively
circulated, and more generally read, than any other productions
of modern times, not even excepting the Waverley novels. We
presume the gentlemen who have acknowledged the great grat
ification they have received from the Major's letters adopted
this particular mode of expressing their feelings, in consequence
of the circumstance to which they allude, viz.—the presentation
through this office of a dozen of the same kind of article
last year to the President of the United States.—Eds.]

To Theodore Dwight, Esq., Editor of the N. Y. Daily Advertiser.

Dear Sir,—In the thriving village of Carthage
(not the Carthage of Queen Dido on the
coast of Africa)—but on the north bank of the
Black River, in the county of Jefferson, and
State of New-York, we have an Axe Factory,
manufactured from ore on the spot. Though
we cannot boast, like Messrs. Collins, Harrison
& Co., that every minute of the day adds one
to the number of our well-finished axes, still we

really make every day our cool dozen, which, as
General Rial said of the grand scenery of the
Highlands, we think is pretty well for a new
country.' And we also think that our axes,
though not as numerous, will in point of quality
bear a comparison with theirs.

Now while these rich and skilful mechanics
present a full dozon of their axes strongly
packed in a highly-polished hickory box to the
`Greatest and Best'—while Pomeroy puffs his
razor-strops, by presenting a sample to the
great rejected, and Peleg Bissell approaches
our ineffably venerable President with his offering
of a churn, so simple, so plain, so destitute
of gearing, and so like his own beau-ideal
of a perfect government, that the `Hero of two
wars' `snickers right out,' as he turns the
crank; we too draw near with our offering.
It is a single axe, and is intended as a small
token of our regard for one who, as a statesman,
a patriot, a soldier, yields to no one.

You will of course perceive that we can
mean no other than Major Downing, of Downingville—the
bed-fellow and privy counsellor
of `him that was born to command' the
Kitchen Cabinet. And we can assure the
Major that this axe has more than one of the

requisite qualifications for a President. Its
helve is of hickory—in Kentucky parlance,
`is as savage as a meat-axe,' and of course
`can look on blood and carnage with composure.'

We confidently hope that the gallant Major
will accept of this trifle as a token of the high
estimation in which he is holden; and, encouraged
by applause, go on as he has begun, subtracting
every superfluous wheel from the
government till it is reduced to a machine
simple as a top, and direct and energetic as a
guillotine.

We intrust this present to you, Mr. Editor,
certain that through no other channel it would
reach the companion of the `Hero' so soon.