University of Virginia Library

28. LETTER XXVIII.

More Nickremancy—The General gets his Hand in—
Difference between a Tammany Man and other Men
—Hints at the Origin and Object of Safety Fund
Banks—Character of Moneyed Aristocracies—Difference
between I and other Folks—A P.S., acknowledging
the Reception of another Present.

I and the Gineral have had a good many
talks about nickremancy and financy, ever
since I show'd him that game of Mr. Van Buren's
with the cups and balls; and every day
arter breakfast, we talk and practise a spell.
The Gineral will say, `Come, Major, now let's
suppose this here cup is sich a Bank, and this
lump of sugar is the deposit in that; and
then sich a cup is sich a Bank, and that 'ere
sasser is sich a Bank;' and so we go on, till
we turn bottom-up all the cups and sassers on
the table, and take nigh upon half the lumps
of sugar out of the sugar-dish; and then we

go to movin, and slidin, and playin hocus-pocus—and
the Gineral gits so tickled at it
(now he is gittin to know the game), that I
am peskily afeard he'll forgit there is danger
in it; and Mr. Van Buren has been tellin him
`the Goverment' can't hold together no way
unless this game is kept up.

The news of the great meetin at Tammany
Hall has jest got here by express; and honest
Amos, and Mr. Van Buren, and a hull raft of
our folks come right in, enymost out of breath,
to talk about the `glory' on't to the Gineral;
and they tell the Gineral that if ony 100 folks
go to that 'ere Hall, there is more dependence
to be put in their resolutions, than in any
other resolutions, no matter if all the rest of
that big city agree to 'em. The Gineral can't
contradict this, because, as he says, Mr. Van
Buren knows more about York State than all
the rest of creation. I was tellin the Gineral
what Zekel Bigelow tell'd me, in his letter
about the vote of the Legislatur of York State,
consarnin the removal of the deposits, and
consarnin the Bank—that the last election in
York State was no guide on this matter—that
the Clay party, and the hull opposition party
to us, didn't do nothin, but kept sayin among

themselves, `give 'em rope,' `make no opposition;'
and in many places we had it all our
own way; and that the ony fightin was
among our own folks; and in some places we
come plaguy nigh beatin ourselves. But if
the election was to go over now, the people
wouldn't elect a critter in that state who voted
in favour of the resolutions. The Gineral
says he don't believe it; and that Zekel is
wrong; and that Mr. Wright, in the Senate,
says as much—and `you can't make Wright
wrong, Major,' says the Gineral (the Gineral
is plaguy witty sometimes). `Well,' says I,
`Gineral, what do you think of them memorials
and petitions comin on here from New-York?
There is names enuff there,' says I,
`to carry any election agin us.' `Yes,' says
the Gineral, `there is a good many on 'em,
sure enuff; but Mr. Van Buren says that one
rale Tammany man is worth a thousand on
'em; and he has written on to git up a petition
in old Tammany; and then you'll see,
Major, how the cat will jump. Our folks
there have got somethin to lose, if they don't
work sharp. The opposition folks haven't got
no offices to lose; and they know they hain't
got no chance for any vacancies when there
is any. Now our folks have; and that makes
'em pretty keen.' `Well,' says I, `there is
somethin in that, Gineral; but,' says I, `suppose
a meetin of mechanics and land-holders,
merchants and traders, and all kind of folks
who don't git their livin out of offices, but
work for it in trades of all kinds, and who
have got families to support—folks who love
the laws, and say they must be executed;
suppose,' says I, `they call a meetin in New-York,
and instead of meetin at night in a tavern
all lighted up, and with picters at the
windows, should all come together at noon-day
in the Park there in front of the City Hall,
where I and you shook hands with so many
folks last summer, and should pass resolutions,
tellin us they believ'd we was wrong in havin
any thing to do with takin the public mony—
that it belonged to Congress only to manage
such things for them—and that it was owin
to this that confidence and credit is destroy'd,
and they are sufferin—how then?' says I.
`Well,' says the Gineral, `until the people do
that, it ain't my fault, Major, in believin that
they think we are doin jest right.' `But,' says
I, `suppose they do so, and nigh upon all the
city goes there?' `Then, Major,' says the
Gineral, `I reckon it would stump us—but I
suppose if we call in Mr. Van Buren, he can
show us with the cups and balls how to play
'em.' `Well,' says I, `he may; but I guess it
would stump him too a trifle.'

The Gineral says Mr. Van Buren talks a
good deal about the fear of `monied aristocracy'—but
I can see threw that pretty clear;
and if the people don't, too, it ain't my fault.
There is one kind of monied aristocracy I am
plaguy afeard of—and that is when politicians
manage to git hold of the mony of the people,
and keep turnin it to their own account,—
first git hold of the mony that don't belong to
'em, and then buy up a party with it. If people
don't keep an eye to this pint, it's all over
with 'em.

`I have no fear, Gineral,' says I, `of `monied
aristocracy,' as some folks call it, provided
we let people manage their own mony
—and if they want to make a Bank, and a
good strong one too, let 'em have it—but let
'em manage it themselves, or let 'em appint
their own folks to manage it for 'em. It ain't
in the natur of things, for people who have
got mony to lend, to do any thing agin the
gineral prosperity of the country; for if the

country don't prosper, or if it gits into a snarl,
they lose their mony. So they are the very
kind of folks who are always tryin to keep
things strait, and accordin to law. Whenever
they take a hand in politics, it is to prevent
politicians gittin things wrong eend first.

`People who have got mony never will consent
to let politicians manage it for 'em, because
they know from natur, and all creation
has shown it, that as soon as politicians git
hold of other folks' mony, they sift it round
plaguy ginerous, jest to git into office; and
then, to keep themselves in office, don't care
what it costs, provided they pay away mony
that don't belong to 'em.'

Now this is the hull drift of the business.
Mr. Van Buren is tryin plaguy hard to take the
Gineral's place, when the Gineral's time is
up—and as the people don't know him as
well as they do the Gineral, because he hain't
fought as many battles, he is cunnin enuff
to secure himself on another tack, and that is,
by gittin the control of the mony of the
country. This he has been to work at for a
long while. In York State his party has
ben practisin in this way for some years—first,
in lettin folks know that the ony way to git a

Bank Charter was, by promisin to divide the
stock round in a particular way—but as this
would, in time, all git back in the hands of the
rich, or them folks who had no other way
of usin their mony, and would pay the most
for the stock—and then they wouldn't let
politicians manage it for 'em. This puzzled
Mr. Van Buren a spell, till the Safety Fund
notion was shown to him: now, thinks he,
I've got it; and all that is to be done is, to
try and make this plan work in the place of
the U. S. Bank—for Mr. Van Buren saw long
ago that as he had no hand in makin or keepin
up the U. S. Bank, but Mr. Calhoun, and Mr.
Clay, and all the other opposite folks to him
had, he naturally got a notion the safest way
was, to put down the U. S. Bank, and put his
Safety Fund Bank right in the place on't.
And there ain't no other reason in the world
why Mr. Van Buren is opposed to the U. S.
Bank. And he got another notion: he
thought if he could ony bring all the Safety
Fund Banks in opposition to the U. S. Bank,
he would figer out a pretty good sum in
politics—for as there was over 300 State
Banks, and ony one U. S. Bank, it would
work amazin well in his favour—and he
could, on that tack, out-vote any man opposed
to him. But, as I have said afore to you, in
one of my letters, when a man attempts to
work out politics with mony matters, unless
he is amazin cute, he is apt to fail—for folks
sometimes, who stick ony to mony matters,
and think they know all about it, find it turns
out right tother way—and that's Mr. Van
Buren's trouble now—he is ony a politician,
and a plaguy cunnin one too—and he is a
master hand at managin things, and gittin
all his folks into office, and jist them kind of
folks, too, who don't like to git a livin in
any other way—and then he knows they will
work plaguy sharp for him, and to keep themselves
in office—and will do pretty much any
thing, too. And then, agin, he is a master
hand at tripping folks who stand in his way,
and afore they know it they are flat on their
backs. I and the Gineral laff sometimes
right out for more than half an hour whenever
we talk over that business of Calhoun—
never was a man so completely outwitted—
and the best on't was, Mr. Calhoun never
could put his finger on Mr. Van Buren and
say, you did this, or you did that. Mr. Van
Buren is a rale fox in sich matters—he never
lets nobody track him if he can help it—
he has more wit than the Gineral—for he
manages to let the Gineral take all the responsibility,
and he don't take a mite on't:
that's natural enuf, too, for he knows the
people will hurraw, right or rong, if they
ony see the Gineral—but if they saw anybody
else, they'd begin to think and talk about
Law and Constitution; and that would git
Mr. Van Buren in trouble right off.

After talkin over this matter a spell with
the Gineral—`Now,' says I, `Gineral, I see,
jist as clear as I see you, that the hull country
is goin right into trouble; and if we don't
change our course we shall all go, hook and
line; for as soon as the next election comes
on, the people won't send back to Congress
here not a single man who says we are right
now in what we have done—we have gone
right agin the Law; and as a proof on't, look
how things now be, compar'd with what they
was—and if we go on so a leetle longer we
shan't be much better off than one of the
South American Goverments, which nobody
has got any confidence in, because the laws
ain't no guide there—every man who gits in
office there follows the law jist as long as it

suits him, and when it don't suit him he does
jist what he pleases. Now,' says I, `the
people of this country won't allow that; they
have made laws, and they say they must be
executed and follow'd, or else there ain't no
use to have any Laws. Why,' says I, `Gineral,
if you wan't here yourself, the people
would no more stand still and let things go
on as they are now goin, than I would swallow
your hickory,' says I—`for the land's sake,' says
I, `jist look at it: and, as I said afore, suppose
any of them opposition folks, such as Clay,
or Webster, or Calhoun, or Adams, or any
body in creation, was jist to do some things
that we have done, and you and I was in the
Senate, or in tother House, or was among the
people, why,' says I, `we'd raise all creation
agin'em—I would,' says I, `in a minit.'
`Well,' says the Gineral, `when I come to
think on't, Major, I don't know but I would
too; but then there is a plaguy deal of difference
betwixt them fellows and Andrew Jackson.'
And with that the Gineral rub'd his
specks, and fix'd'em close up to his eyes, and
took his hickory, and began to walk up and
down, talking about the popularity and the
glory of his administration—`Why,' says the
Gineral, nothin can hold a candle to it—it will
be jist like a light-house to all the folks that
come arter us, Major.' `Well,' says I, `Gineral,
that's pretty much my notion too. But
the worst on't is, some, I'm afear'd, will say
that light-houses don't always stand in safe
places—but sarve to tell folks `there is danger
nigh,' and to look out sharp or they'll go bump
ashore. So no more at present,