things over, and present a good face in spite of facts. Any one who has carefully studied the history of the Bank, and Biddle's "statements," will come to every statement of his with a disagreeable sense of suspicion. It is by no means certain, whatever the true explanation of the contradiction may be, that Whitney told a lie in the matter in which his word and Biddle's were opposed.

merce.

Biddle's theory of bank-note issues was vicious and false. He thought that the business of a bank was to furnish a paper medium for trade and comHe thought that this medium served as a token and record of transactions, so that the transactions to be accomplished called out the paper, and when accomplished brought the paper back. The art of the banker consisted in a kind of legerdemain, by which he kept bolstering up one transaction by another, and swelling the total amount of them on which he won profits. There could then be no inflation of the paper, if it was only put out as demanded for real transactions. Therefore he never distinguished between bills of exchange and money, or the true paper substitute for money, which is constantly and directly interchangeable with money, so that it cannot degenerate into a negotiable instrument like notes and bills. His management of the Bank was a test of his theory on a grand scale. The branch drafts were a special test of it. It was proved that they had none of the character of convertible bank-notes or money,

but were instruments of credit, and, like all instruments of credit which have cut loose from actual redemption in capital, there was no more limit to their possible inflation than to the infinity of human hopes and human desires. Only a few months after the congressional investigation, November, 1832, the president of the Nashville branch wrote to Biddle: "Be assured, sir, that we are as well convinced as you are that too many bills are offered and purchased, — amounting to more than the present crop of cotton and tobacco will pay; I mean, before all these papers are taken up.' It does not appear that, in the spring of 1832, Biddle yet perceived the operation of the branch drafts, and it could not be said that sincerity required that he should avow a mistake to a hostile committee; but his letter to Clayton, appended to the report of 1832, is meretricious and dazzling, calculated to repel investigation and cover up weakness by a sensational assertion. "The whole policy of the Bank for the last six months has been exclusively protective and conservative, calculated to mitigate suffering and yet avert danger." He sketches out in broad and bold outlines the national and international relations of American industry and commerce and the financial relations of the Treasury, with the Bank enthroned over all as the financial providence of the country. This kind of writing had a great effect on the uninitiated. Who could dispute with a man who thus handled all the public and private finance of the whole country as a

school-master would tell boys how to do a sum in long division? However, it was all humbug, and especially that part which represented the Bank as watching over and caring for the public. As Gouge most justly remarked, after quoting some of Biddle's rhetoric: "The true basis of the interior trade of the United States is the fertility of the soil and the industry of the people. The sun would shine, the streams would flow, and the earth would yield her increase, if the Bank of the United States was not in existence." 1 If the Bank had been strong, Biddle's explanations would all have been meretricious; as it was, the Bank had been quite fully occupied in 1831-32 in taking care of itself, mitigating its own sufferings and averting its own dangers.

No doubt the Bank was the chief sufferer from the shocks inflicted on the money market by the sudden and heavy payments on the public debt. Long credits were given for duties. When paid they passed into the Bank as public deposits. They were loaned again to merchants to pay new duties, so that one credit was piled upon another already in this part of the arrangement. Then the deposits were called in to meet drafts of the Treasury to pay the debt, and so passed to the former fund-holders. These latter next entered the money market as investors, and the capital passed into new employments. Therefore Benton's argument, which all the anti-Bank men caught

1 Gouge, 56.

up, that the financial heats and chills of this period were certainly due to the malice of the Bank, is of no force at all. The disturbances were such, they necessarily lasted so long, and they finally settled down to such uncalculable final effects that all such deductions as Benton made were unwarranted. A public debt is not a blessing, but it is not as great a curse as a public surplus, and it is very possible to pay off a debt too rapidly. We shall, on two or three further occasions in this history, find the "public deposits " banging about the money market like a cannon ball loose in the hold of a ship in a high wind.

While the committee was investigating the Bank the political strife was growing more intense, and every chance of dealing dispassionately with the question of recharter had passed away. In January, Van Buren's nomination as minister to England was rejected by the Senate.1 The Legislature of New York had passed resolutions against the recharter of the Bank.2 This hurt Van Buren in Pennsylvania. Such was the strange combination of feelings and convictions at this time that Jackson could demolish the Bank without shaking his hold on Pennsylvania, but Van Buren was never forgiven for the action of his State against the Bank. It illustrated again the observation made above, that the popular idol enjoys an unreasonable immunity, while others may be held to an unreasonable responsibility. All Jackson's intensest 1 See page 210. 2 2 Hammond, 351.

personal feeelings, as well as the choice of the kitchen cabinet, now converged on Van Buren's nomination. The Seminole war grudge, hatred of Calhoun, the Eaton scandal, and animosity to the Senate contributed towards this end.

Parton gives us one of Lewis's letters, which shows the wire-pulling which preceded the first democratic. convention. Kendall was in New Hampshire in the spring of 1831. Lewis wrote to him to propose that a convention should be held in May, 1832, to nominate Van Buren for VicePresident. He suggested that the New Hampshire Legislature should be prompted to propose it. Kendall arranged this and wrote a letter, giving an account of the meeting, resolutions, etc., which was published anonymously in the "Globe," July 6, 1831. The "Globe" took up the proposition and approved of it. The convention met at Baltimore, May 21, 1832. John H. Eaton was a delegate to the convention. He intended to vote against Van Buren, for, although Van Buren had taken Mrs. Eaton's part, he had not won Eaton's affection. Lewis wrote to Eaton that he must not vote against Van Buren "unless he was prepared to quarrel with the general." Van Buren was nominated by 260 votes out of 326. The "spontaneous unanimity" of this convention was produced by the will of Andrew Jackson and the energetic discipline of the kitchen cabinet. It may well be doubted whether, without Jackson's support, Van Buren could have got 260 votes for President or Vice