THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



institutions were sensible of its strength, and they soon 

 generally became its obedient instruments, ready at all 

 times to execute its mandates ; and, with the banks necessa- 

 rily went also that numerous class of persons in our com- 

 mercial cities who depended altogether on bank credits for 

 their solvency and means of business; who are therefore 

 obliged, for their own safety, to propitiate the favor of the 

 money power by distinguished zeal and devotion in its 

 service. 



"The result of the ill-advised legislation, which estab- 

 lished this great monopoly, was to concentrate the whole 

 moneyed power of the Union, with its boundless means of 

 corruption, and its numerous dependents, under the 

 direction and command of one acknowledged head; thus 

 organizing this particular interest as one body, and secur- 

 ing to it unity and concert of action, throughout the 

 United States, and enabling it to bring forward, upon any 

 occasion, its entire and undivided strength to support or 

 defeat any measure of the government. In the hands of 

 this formidable power, thus perfectly organized, was also 

 placed unlimited dominion over the amount of the circu- 

 lating medium, giving it the power to regulate the value 

 of property and the fruits of labor, in every quarter of the 

 Union; and to bestow prosperity or bring ruin upon any 

 city or section of the country, as might best comport with 

 its own interest or policy. 



u We are not left to conjecture how the moneyed 

 power thus organized and with such a weapon in its hands, 

 would be likely to use it. The distress and alarm which 

 pervaded and agitated the whole country, when the Bank of 

 the United States waged war upon the people, and in order 

 to compel them to submit to its demands, cannot yet be 

 forgotten. The ruthless and unsparing temper with which 

 whole cities and communities were oppressed, individuals 

 impoverished and ruined, and a scene of cheerful prosperity 



