162 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
the mechanics’ interest of this city, compelling them in many 
cases, to abandon their business or dishonestly manufacture 
very inferior goods for the competition of the auction room. 
“Resolved : That the credit system on duties at our custom 
houses, which furnishes the auctioneers and foreign importers 
with an additional capital of fifteen million dollars, at all times 
in this city, the greater part of wdiich is drawn from the pro¬ 
ducing classes, they being the consumers, is an evil of immense 
magnitude, and demands our immediate attention. 
“Resolved: That the banks under the administration of the 
present directors 62 and officers, and by the concert of auctioneers 
and foreigners aided by custom house credits, form a monopoly 
that is hostile to the equal rights of the American merchant, 
manufacturer, mechanic and laboring man; and that the re¬ 
newal by the Legislature of the charters prayed for will — 
perpetuate an aristocracy wdiich eventually may shake the foun¬ 
dations of our liberty and entail slavery on our posterity.” The 
proposed remedies were: 1st, duties to be paid in cash; 2nd, 
charters of banks controlled by monopolies, to be allowed to ex¬ 
pire, and, if the banks be needed that part, of the directors be 
named from the producing classes; 3rd, heavy duties on sales at 
auction—to be levied at least for some time to come. 63 
At this same meeting a General Executive Committee was 
appointed for the purpose of coordinating the movement in the 
various wards of the City. This is the second Committee of 
Fifty. The names of the first are not available!, but the names 
and occupations of the second are given in the Workingmen’s 
Advocate* 64 With few exceptions it was composed of working¬ 
men, none of whose names, however, appear in the Anti-Auction 
Committee of Fifty nor the Few York Anti-Auction Com¬ 
mittee of Eighteen. 
62 Every auctioneer “it is believed” is a bank director and that money 
is distributed from Wall street at the discretion of bank directors and 
auctioneers. Workingmen’s Advocate, Jan. 16/30. 
63 “Our legislature was adjourned, after passing 387 acts during a 
session of 106 days. Among these acts is one providing for an equal 
system of education, for the abolishment of imprisonment for debt, 
. . . for amending the present monopolizing banking and auction 
system”—Editorial: Workingmen’s Advocate Apr. 17, 1830, p. 3, col. 2. 
64 Mar. 20, 1830, p. 3, col. 4. 
