66 Indiana University 
branches in Kentucky, as it proved later, hastened its down- 
fall.^« 
Continued distress and gloom pervaded the country general- 
ly from 1819 to 1821 inclusive. The cry for aid and stays in 
paying public land debts was heard by Congress.®'^ The credit 
system then prevailed even in sales of public lands, and the 
debt to the government for lands so purchased from the pub- 
lic domain had accumulated to $23,000,000, an enormous sum 
when it is considered that the purchasers were inhabitants of 
the frontier states. Their situation was desperate, and the open- 
ing of Congress in 1820 brought petitions for relief from all 
the new states. References to the financial condition of the 
country also were made in President Monroe’s message.^® The 
federal government came to the rescue with a system which 
authorized purchasers in arrears “to secure a portion of their 
lands by relinquishing the remainder to the government”.^® 
Since the government previously had done many similar 
things to aid its debtors, it was partly responsible for the 
deluge of requests for aid which swamped the state legisla- 
tures, when true relief lay only with the petitioners them- 
selves. Many states besides Kentucky passed relief measures, 
among them being Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee.®® In 
Kentucky where the great mass of the people were in the 
debtor class, there was no improvement in economic condi- 
tions. Trade was demoralized in spite of attempted relief, 
with scarcely any improvement before 1822 and no great im- 
provement until later. Niles quotes a traveler in Illinois as 
saying at this time of Kentucky that 
Nothing is to be seen but a boundless expanse of desolation! Wealth 
is impoverished, enterprise checked, commerce at a stand, the currency 
depreciated — and all that was indicative of state prosperity and advance- 
ment, plunged into the great vortex of irremediable involvement.®^ 
James Weir was a native of Ireland who came to Kentucky 
about 1788. He was one of the wealthiest and most prosper- 
ous merchants of Lexington. Besides having a general store 
he had a bagging factory, a rope walk, and, in Woodford 
Carl Schurz, Henry Clay (2 vols., Boston, 1899), II, 26. 
Wilson, op. cit., 41. 
James D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1902 (10 vols., 
Washington, 1907), II, 78; see also Thomas Benton, Thirty Years' Vietv (2 vols., New 
York, 1865), I, 11, 12. 
Lee (ed.), The History of North America, XII, 159. 
Turner, The Rise of the Netv West, 139. 
Niles’ Register, XVII, 19. 
