FOOTNOTES:

What could be easier or more just than to enact legislation that would lift the burden of debt that was crushing the people? The State banks would not resist—were they not under the control of the people's Legislature? But they were also at the mercy of that remorseless creature of the National Government, the Bank of the United States. That malign Thing was the real cause of all the trouble.[590]Let the law by which Congress had given illegitimate life to that destroyer of the people's well-being be repealed. If that could not be done because so many of the National Legislature were corruptly interested in the Bank, the States had a sure weapon with which to destroy it—or at least to drive it out of business in every member of the Union.

That weapon was taxation. Let each Legislature, by special taxes, strangle the branches of the National Bank operating in the States. So came a popular determination to exterminate, by State action, the second Bank of the United States. National power should be brought to its knees by local authority! National agencies should be made helpless and be dispatched by State prohibition and State taxation! The arm of the National Government should be paralyzed by the blows showered on it when thrusting itself into the affairs of "sovereign" States! Already this process was well under way.

The first Constitution of Indiana, adopted soon after Congress had authorized the second Bank of the United States, prohibited any bank chartered outside the State from doing business within its borders.[591]During the very month that the National Bank opened its doors in 1817, the Legislature of Maryland passed an act taxing the Baltimore branch $15,000 annually. Seven months afterward the Legislature of Tennessee enacted a law that any bank not chartered under its authority should pay $50,000 each year for the privilege of banking in that State. A month later Georgia placed a special tax on branches of the Bank of the United States.

The Constitution of Illinois, adopted in August, 1818, forbade the establishment of any but State banks. In December of that year North Carolina taxed the branch of the National Bank in that State $5000 per annum. A few weeks later Kentucky laid an annual tax of $60,000 on each of the two branches of the Bank of the United States located at Lexington and Frankfort. Three weeks before John Marshall delivered his opinion in M'Cullochvs.Maryland, Ohio enacted a statute placing a yearlytax of $50,000 on each of the two National Bank branches then doing business in that State.[592]

Thus the extinction of the second Bank of the United States by State legislation appeared to be inevitable. The past management of it had well deserved this fate; but earnest efforts were now in operation to recover it from former blunders and to retrieve its fortunes. The period of corruption was over, and a new, able, and honest management was about to take charge. If, however, the States could destroy this National fiscal agency, it mattered not how well it might thereafter be conducted, for nothing could be more certain than that the local influence of State banks always would be great enough to induce State Legislatures to lay impossible burdens on the National Bank.

Such, then, was the situation that produced those opinions of Marshall on insolvency, on contract, and on a National bank, delivered during February and March of 1819; such the National conditions which confronted him during the preceding summer and autumn. He could do nothing to ameliorate these conditions, nothing to relieve the universal unhappiness, nothing to appease the popular discontent. But he could establish great National principles, which would give steadiness to American business, vitality to the National Government; and which would encourage the people to practice honesty, prudence, and thrift. And just this John Marshall did. When considering the enduring work he performed at this time, we must have in our thoughtthe circumstances that made that work vitally necessary.

One of the earliest cases decided by the Supreme Court in 1819 involved the Bankrupt Law of New York. On November 25, 1817, Josiah Sturges[593]of Massachusetts sued Richard Crowninshield of New York in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts to recover upon two promissory notes for the sum of $771.86 each, executed March 22, 1811, just twelve days before the passage, April 3, 1811, of the New York statute for the relief of insolvent debtors. The defendant pleaded his discharge under that act. The judges were divided in opinion on the questions whether a State can pass a bankrupt act, whether the New York law was a bankrupt act, and whether it impaired the obligations of a contract. These questions were, accordingly, certified to the Supreme Court.

The case was there argued long and exhaustively by David Daggett and Joseph Hopkinson for Sturges and by David B. Ogden and William Hunter for Crowninshield. In weight of reasoning and full citation of authority, the discussion was inferior only to those contests before the Supreme Bench which have found a place in history.

On February 17, 1819, Marshall delivered the unanimous opinion of the court.[594]Do the words of the Constitution, "Congress shall have power ... to establish ... uniform laws on the subject ofbankruptcies throughout the United States" take from the States the right to pass such laws?

Before the adoption of the Constitution, begins Marshall, the States "united for some purposes, but, in most respects, sovereign," could "exercise almost every legislative power." The powers of the States under the Constitution were not defined in that instrument. "These powers proceed, not from the people of America, but from the people of the several states; and remain, after the adoption of the constitution, what they were before, except so far as they may be abridged" by the Nation's fundamental law.

While the "mere grant of a power to Congress" does not necessarily mean that the States are forbidden to exercise the same power, such concurrent power does not extend to "every possible case" not expressly prohibited by the Constitution. "The confusion resulting from such a practice would be endless." As a general principle, declares the Chief Justice, "whenever the terms in which a power is granted to Congress, or the nature of the power, required that it should be exercised exclusively by Congress, the subject is as completely taken from the state legislatures as if they had been expressly forbidden to act on it."[595]

John Marshall From the bust in the Supreme CourtJohn MarshallFrom the bust in the Court Room of the United States Supreme Court

Does this general principle apply to bankrupt laws? Assuredly it does. Congress is empowered to "establish uniform laws on the subject throughout the United States." Uniform National legislation is "incompatible with state legislation" on the samesubject. Marshall draws a distinction between bankrupt and insolvency laws, although "the line of partition between them is not so distinctly marked" that it can be said, "with positive precision, what belongs exclusively to the one, and not to the other class of laws."[596]

He enters upon an examination of the nature of insolvent laws which States may enact, and bankrupt laws which Congress may enact; and finds that "there is such a connection between them as to render it difficult to say how far they may be blended together.... A bankrupt law may contain those regulations which are generally found in insolvent laws"; while "an insolvent law may contain those which are common to a bankrupt law." It is "obvious," then, that it would be a hardship to "deny to the state legislatures the power of acting on this subject, in consequence of the grant to Congress." The true rule—"certainly a convenient one"—is to "consider the power of the states as existing over such cases as the laws of the Union may not reach."[597]

But, whether this common-sense construction is adopted or not, it is undeniable that Congress may exercise a power granted to it or decline to exercise it. So, if Congress thinks that uniform bankrupt laws "ought not to be established" throughout the country, surely the State Legislatures ought not, on that account, to be prevented from passing bankrupt acts. The idea of Marshall, the statesman, was that it was better to have bankrupt laws of some kind than none at all. "It is not the mere existenceof the power [in Congress], but its exercise, which is incompatible with the exercise of the same power by the states. It is not the right to establish these uniform laws, but their actual establishment, which is inconsistent with the partial acts of the states."[598]

Even should Congress pass a bankrupt law, that action does not extinguish, but only suspends, the power of the State to legislate on the same subject. When Congress repeals a National bankrupt law it merely "removes a disability" of the State created by the enactment of the National statute, and lasting only so long as that statute is in force. In short, "until the power to pass uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies be exercised by Congress, the states are not forbidden to pass a bankrupt law, provided it contain no principle which violates the 10th section of the first article of the constitution of the United States."[599]

Having toilsomely reached this conclusion, Marshall comes to what he calls "the great question on which the cause must depend": Does the New York Bankrupt Law "impair the obligation of contracts"?[600]

What is the effect of that law? It "liberates the person of the debtor, and discharges him from all liability for any debt previously contracted, on his surrendering his property in the manner it prescribes." Here Marshall enters upon that series of expositions of the contract clause of the Constitution which, next to the Nationalism of his opinions, is, perhaps, the most conspicuous feature of his philosophy of government and human intercourse.[601]"What is the obligation of a contract? and what will impair it?"[602]

It would be hard to find words "more intelligible, or less liable to misconstruction, than those which are to be explained." With a tinge of patient impatience, the Chief Justice proceeds to define the words "contract," "impair," and "obligation," much as a weary school teacher might teach the simplest lesson to a particularly dull pupil.

"A contract is an agreement in which a party undertakes to do, or not to do, a particular thing. The law binds him to perform his undertaking, and this is, of course, the obligation of his contract. In the case at bar, the defendant has given his promissory note to pay the plaintiff a sum of money on or before a certain day. The contract binds him to pay that sum on that day; and this is its obligation. Any law which releases a part of this obligation, must, in the literal sense of the word, impair it. Much more must a law impair it which makes it totally invalid, and entirely discharges it.

"The words of the constitution, then, are express, and incapable of being misunderstood. They admit of no variety of construction, and are acknowledged to apply to that species of contract, an engagement between man and man, for the payment of money, which has been entered into by these parties."[603]

What are the arguments that such law does not violate the Constitution? One is that, since a contract "can only bind a man to pay to the full extent of his property, it is an implied condition that he may be discharged on surrendering the whole of it." This is simply not true, says Marshall. When a contract is made, the parties to it have in mind, not only existing property, but "future acquisitions. Industry, talents and integrity, constitute a fund which is as confidently trusted as property itself. Future acquisitions are, therefore, liable for contracts; and to release them from this liability impairs their obligation."[604]

Marshall brushes aside, almost brusquely, the argument that the only reason for the adoption of the contract clause by the Constitutional Convention was the paper money evil; that the States always had passed bankrupt and insolvent laws; and that if the framers of the Constitution had intended to deprive the States of this power, "insolvent laws would have been mentioned in the prohibition."

No power whatever, he repeats, is conferred on the States by the Constitution. That instrument found them "in possession" of practically all legislative power and either prohibited "its future exercise entirely," or restrained it "so far as national policy may require."

While the Constitution permits States to pass bankrupt laws "until that power shall be exercised by Congress," the fundamental law positively forbids the States to "introduce into such laws a clause which discharges the obligations the bankrupt has entered into. It is not admitted that, without this principle, an act cannot be a bankrupt law; and if it were, that admission would not change the constitution, nor exempt such acts from its prohibitions."[605]

There was, said Marshall, nothing in the argument that, if the framers of the Constitution had intended to "prohibit the States from passing insolvent laws," they would have plainly said so. "It was not necessary, nor would it have been safe" for them to have enumerated "particular subjects to which the principle they intended to establish should apply."

On this subject, as on every other dealt with in the Constitution, fundamental principles are set out. What is the one involved in this case? It is "the inviolability of contracts. This principle was to be protected in whatsoever form it might be assailed. To what purpose enumerate the particular modes of violation which should be forbidden, when it was intended to forbid all?... The plain and simple declaration, that no state shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts, includes insolvent laws and all other laws, so far as they infringe the principle the convention intended to hold sacred, and no farther."[606]

At this point Marshall displays the humanitarian which, in his character, was inferior only to the statesman. He was against imprisonment for debt, one of the many brutal customs still practiced."The convention did not intend to prohibit the passage of all insolvent laws," he avows. "To punish honest insolvency by imprisonment for life, and to make this a constitutional principle, would be an excess of inhumanity which will not readily be imputed to the illustrious patriots who framed our constitution, nor to the people who adopted it.... Confinement of the debtor may be a punishment for not performing his contract, or may be allowed as a means of inducing him to perform it. But the state may refuse to inflict this punishment, or may withhold this means and leave the contract in full force. Imprisonment is no part of the contract, and simply to release the prisoner does not impair its obligation."[607]

Following his provoking custom of taking up a point with which he had already dealt, Marshall harks back to the subject of the reason for inserting the contract clause into the Constitution. He restates the argument against applying that provision to State insolvent laws—that, from the beginning, the Colonies and States had enacted such legislation; that the history of the times shows that "the mind of the convention was directed to other laws which were fraudulent in their character, which enabled the debtor to escape from his obligation, and yet hold his property, not to this, which is beneficial in its operation."

But, he continues, "the spirit of ... a constitution" is not to be determined solely by a partial view of the history of the times when it was adopted—"the spirit is to be collected chiefly from its words." And "it would be dangerous in the extreme to infer from extrinsic circumstances, that a case for which the words of an instrument expressly provide, shall be exempted from its operation." Where language is obscure, where words conflict, "construction becomes necessary." But, when language is clear, words harmonious, the plain meaning of that language and of those words is not "to be disregarded, because we believe the framers of that instrument could not intend what they say."[608]

The practice of the Colonies, and of the States before the Constitution was adopted, was a weak argument at best. For example, the Colonies and States had issued paper money, emitted bills of credit, and done other things, all of which the Constitution prohibits. "If the long exercise of the power to emit bills of credit did not restrain the convention from prohibiting its future exercise, neither can it be said that the long exercise of the power to impair the obligation of contracts, should prevent a similar prohibition." The fact that insolvent laws are not forbidden "by name" does not exclude them from the operation of the contract clause of the Constitution. It is "a principle which is to be forbidden; and this principle is described in as appropriate terms as our language affords."[609]

Perhaps paper money was the chief and impelling reason for making the contract clause a part of the National Constitution. But can the operation of that clause be confined to paper money? "No courtcan be justified in restricting such comprehensive words to a particular mischief to which no allusion is made." The words must be given "their full and obvious meaning."[610]Doubtless the evils of paper money directed the Convention to the subject of contracts; but it did far more than to make paper money impossible thereafter. "In the opinion of the convention, much more remained to be done. The same mischief might be effected by other means. To restore public confidence completely, it was necessary not only to prohibit the use of particular means by which it might be effected, but to prohibit the use of any means by which the same mischief might be produced. The convention appears to have intended to establish a great principle, that contracts should be inviolable. The constitution therefore declares, that no state shall pass 'any law impairing the obligation of contracts.'"[611]From all this it follows that the New York Bankruptcy Act of 1812 is unconstitutional because it impaired the obligations of a contract.

The opinion of the Chief Justice aroused great excitement.[612]It, of course, alarmed those who had been using State insolvent laws to avoid payment of their debts, while retaining much of their wealth. It also was unwelcome to the great body of honest, though imprudent, debtors who were struggling to lighten their burdens by legislation. But the more thoughtful, even among radicals, welcomed Marshall's pronouncement. Niles approved it heartily.[613]

Gradually, surely, Marshall's simple doctrine grew in favor throughout the whole country, and is to-day a vital and enduring element of American thought and character as well as of Constitutional law.

As in Fletchervs.Peck, the principle of the inviolability of contracts was applied where a State and individuals are parties, so the same principle was now asserted in Sturgesvs.Crowninshield as to State laws impairing the obligation of contracts between man and man. At the same session, in the celebrated Dartmouth College case,[614]Marshall announced that this principle also covers charters granted by States. Thus did he develop the idea of good faith and stability of engagement as a life-giving principle of the American Constitution.

FOOTNOTES:[437]M'Cullochvs.Maryland, seeinfra, chap.vi.[438]See vol.ii, 60, of this work.[439]Sumner:History of American Currency, 63.[440]See Memorial of the Bank for a recharter, April 20, 1808 (Am. State Papers, Finance,ii, 301), and second Memorial, Dec. 18, 1810 (ib.451-52). Every statement in these petitions was true. See also Dewey:Financial History of the United States, 100, 101.[441]See vol.ii, 70-71, of this work.[442]Annals, 1st Cong. 2d. Sess. 1945. By far the strongest objection to a National bank, however, was that it was a monopoly inconsistent with free institutions.[443]Jefferson to Gallatin, Dec. 13, 1803,Works: Ford:x, 57.[444]"Fully two thirds of the Bank stock ... were owned in England." (Adams:U.S.v, 328.)[445]Dewey, 127; and Pitkin:Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States, 130-32.[446]Adams:U.S.v, 328-29.[447]Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 118-21.[448]Ib.153, 201, 308; and see Pitkin, 421.[449]Adams:U.S.v, 327-28. "They induced one State legislature after another to instruct their senators on the subject." Pitkin, 422.[450]Ambler:Ritchie, 26-27, 52.[451]Ib.67.[452]Branch Hist. Papers, June, 1903, 179.[453]Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 145.[454]"It is true, that a branch of the Bank of the United States ... is established at Norfolk; and that a branch of the Bank of Virginia is also established there. But these circumstances furnish no possible motive of avarice to the Virginia Legislature.... They have acted ... from the purest and most honorable motives." (Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 200.)[455]Pitkin, 421.[456]The "newspapers teem with the most virulent abuse." (James Flint's Letters from America, inEarly Western Travels: Thwaites,ix, 87.) Even twenty years later Captain Marryat records: "The press in the United States is licentious to the highest possible degree, and defies control.... Every man in America reads his newspaper, and hardly any thing else." (Marryat:Diary in America, 2d Series, 56-59.)[457]"The Democratic presses ... have ... teemed with the most scurrilous abuse against every member of Congress who has dared to utter a syllable in favor of the renewal of the bank charter." Any member supporting the bank "is instantly charged with being bribed, ... with being corrupt, with having trampled upon the rights and liberties of the people, ... with being guilty of perjury."According to "the rantings of our Democratic editors ... and the denunciations of our public declaimers," the bank "exists under the form of every foul and hateful beast and bird, and creeping thing. It is anHydra; it is aCerberus; it is aGorgon; it is aVulture; it is aViper...."Shall we tamely act under the lash of this tyranny of the press?... I most solemnly protest.... To tyranny, under whatever form it may be exercised, I declare open and interminable war ... whether the tyrant is an irresponsible editor or a despotic Monarch." (Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 145.)[458]Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 826.[459]Ib.347.[460]Pitkin, 430.[461]Adams to Rush, Dec. 27, 1810,Old Family Letters, 272.[462]Sumner:Andrew Jackson, 229.[463]Dewey, 145.[464]Twenty-one State banks were employed as Government depositories after the destruction of the first Bank of the United States (Ib.128.)[465]Dewey, 127.[466]Adams to Rush, July 3, 1812,Old Family Letters, 299.[467]William Faux's Journal,E. W. T.: Thwaites,xi, 207.[468]Speech of Hanson in the House, Nov. 28, 1814,Annals, 13th Cong. 3d Sess. 656.[469]Catterall:Second Bank of the United States, 13-17.[470]Calhoun's bill.[471]Webster to his brother, Nov. 29, 1814, Van Tyne, 55.[472]Webster's bill.[473]Annals, 13th Cong. 3d Sess. 189-91; Richardson,i, 555-57.[474]Richardson,i, 565-66. Four years afterwards President Monroe told his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, that Jefferson, Madison, and himself considered all Constitutional objections to the Bank as having been "settled by twenty years of practice and acquiescence under the first bank." (Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams,iv, 499, Jan. 8, 1820.)[475]Annals, 14th Cong. 1st Sess. 280-81.[476]Annals, 1st Cong. 2d and 3d Sess. 2375-82; and 14th Cong. 1st Sess. 1812-25; also Dewey, 150-51.[477]Catterall, 22.[478]Dewey, 144.[479]Sumner:Hist. Am. Currency, 70.[480]In November, 1818, Niles estimated that there were about four hundred banks in the country with eight thousand "managers and clerks," costing $2,000,000, annually. (Niles,xv, 162.)[481]"The present multitude of them ... is no more fitted to the condition of society, than a long-tailed coat becomes a sailor on ship-board." (Ib.xi, 130.)[482]King to his son, May 1, 1816, King,vi, 22.[483]King to Gore, May 14, 1816,Ib.23-25.[484]Niles,xiv, 109.[485]Ib.xvi, 257.[486]Niles,xvi, 257.[487]Ib.xiv, 110.[488]Ib.195-96.[489]"Niles'Weekly Registeris ... an excellent repository of facts and documents." (Jefferson to Crawford, Feb. 11, 1815,Works: Ford,xi. 453.)[490]Niles,xiv, 426-28.[491]Niles,xiv, 2-3.[492]"Report of the Committee on the Currency of this [New York] State," Feb. 24, 1818,ib.39-42; also partially reproduced inAmerican History told by Contemporaries: Hart,iii, 441-45.[493]"Report of Committee on the Currency," New York,supra, 184.[494]Niles,xiv, 108.[495]Jefferson to Yancey, Jan. 6, 1816,Works: Ford,xi, 494.[496]Dewey, 144; and Sumner:Hist. Am. Currency, 75.[497]Niles proposed a new bank to be called "The Ragbank of the Universe," main office at "Lottery-ville," and branches at "Hookstown," "Owl Creek," "Botany Bay," and "Twisters-burg." Directors were to be empowered also "to put offices on wheels, on ship-board, or in balloons"; stock to be "one thousand million of old shirts." (Niles,xiv, 227.)[498]Dewey, 144.[499]Ib.153-54.[500]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 136; and see "Report of the Committee on the Currency," New York,supra, 184.[501]Tyler:Tyler,i, 302; Niles,xi, 130.[502]Niles,xi, 128.[503]Ib.iv, 109; Collins:Historical Sketches of Kentucky, 88.These were in addition to the branches of the Bank of Kentucky and of the Bank of the United States. Including them, the number of chartered banks in that State was fifty-eight by the close of 1818. Of the towns where new banks were established during that year, Burksville had 106 inhabitants; Barboursville, 55; Hopkinsville, 131; Greenville, 75; thirteen others had fewer than 500 inhabitants. The "capital" of the banks in such places was never less than $100,000, but that at Glasgow, with 244 inhabitants, had a capital of $200,000, and several other villages were similarly favored. For full list see Niles,xiv, 109.[504]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 133.[505]Niles,xvii, 85.[506]John Woods's Two Years' Residence,E. W. T.: Thwaites,x, 236.[507]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 133-34.[508]Ib.136.[509]Niles,xiv, 162.[510]Woods's Two Years' Residence,E. W. T.: Thwaites,x, 274-78: and Flint's Letters,ib.ix, 69.In southwestern Indiana, in 1818, Faux "saw nothing ... but miserable log holes, and a mean ville of eight or ten huts or cabins, sadly neglected farms, and indolent, dirty, sickly, wild-looking inhabitants." (Faux's Journal, Nov. 1, 1818,ib.xi, 213-14.) He describes Kentucky houses as "miserable holes, having one room only," where "all cook, eat, sleep, breed, and die, males and females, all together." (Ib.185, and see 202.)[511]For shocking and almost unbelievable conditions of living among the settlers see Faux's Journal,E. W. T.: Thwaites,xi, 226, 231, 252-53, 268-69.[512]"We landed for some whiskey; for our men would do nothing without." (Woods's Two Years' Residence,ib.x, 245, 317.) "Excessive drinking seems the all-pervading, easily-besetting sin." (Faux's Journal, Nov. 3, 1818,ib.xi, 213.) This continued for many years and was as marked in the East as in the West. (See Marryat, 2d Series, 37-41.)There was, however, a large and ever-increasing number who hearkened to those wonderful men, the circuit-riding preachers, who did so much to build up moral and religious America. Most people belonged to some church, and at the camp meetings and revivals, multitudes received conviction.The student should carefully read theAutobiography of Peter Cartwright, edited by W. P. Strickland. This book is an invaluable historical source and is highly interesting. See also Schermerhorn and Mills:A Correct View of that part of the United States which lies west of the Allegany Mountains, with regard to Religion and Morals.Great Revival in the West, by Catharine C. Cleveland, is a careful and trustworthy account of religious conditions before the War of 1812. It has a complete bibliography.[513]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites, 153; also Schermerhorn and Mills, 17-18.[514]"Nature is the agriculturist here [near Princeton, Ind.]; speculation instead of cultivation, is the order of the day amongst men." (Thomas Hulme's Journal, E. W. T.: Thwaites,x, 62; see Faux's Journal,ib.xi, 227.)[515]Faux's Journal,ib.216, 236, 242-43.[516]Ib.214.[517]See vol.i, chap,vii, of this work.[518]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 87; Woods's Two Years Residence,ib.x, 255. "I saw a man this day ... his nose bitten off close down to its root, in a fight with a nose-loving neighbour." (Faux's Journal,ib.xi, 222; and see Strickland, 24-25.)[519]The reports of American conditions by British travelers, although from unsympathetic pens and much exaggerated, were substantially true. Thus Europe, and especially the United Kingdom, conceived for Americans that profound contempt which was to endure for generations."Such is the land of Jonathan," declared theEdinburgh Reviewin an analysis in 1820 (xxxiii, 78-80) of a book entitledStatistical Annals of the United States, by Adam Seybert. "He must not ... allow himself to be dazzled by that galaxy of epithets by which his orators and newspaper scribblers endeavour to persuade their supporters that they are the greatest, the most refined, the most enlightened, and the most moral people upon earth.... They have hitherto given no indications of genius, and made no approaches to the heroic, either in their morality or character...."During the thirty or forty years of their independence, they have done absolutely nothing for the Sciences, for the Arts, for Literature, or even for statesman-like studies of Politics or Political Economy.... In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones have they analyzed? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans?—what have they done in the mathematics...? under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a Slave, whom his fellow-creatures may buy and sell and torture?"[520]Nevertheless, these very settlers had qualities of sound, clean citizenship; and beneath their roughness and crudity were noble aspirations. For a sympathetic and scholarly treatment of this phase of the subject see Pease:Frontier State,i, 69.[521]Faux's Journal,E. W. T.: Thwaites,xi, 246.[522]Randolph to Quincy, Aug. 16, 1812,Quincy: Quincy, 270.[523]Marryat, 2d Series, 1.[524]See vol.i, chap,vii, of this work.[525]Marryat, 1st Series, 15.[526]Marryat, 2d Series, 176.[527]Woods's Two Years' Residence,E. W. T.: Thwaites,x, 325.[528]Niles,xiv, 2.[529]See McMaster,iv, 287. This continued even after the people had at last become suspicious of unlicensed banks. In 1820, at Bloomington, Ohio, a hamlet of "ten houses ... in the edge of the prairie ... a [bank] company was formed, plates engraved, and the bank notes brought to the spot." Failing to secure a charter, the adventurers sold their outfit at auction, fictitious names were signed to the notes, which were then put into fraudulent circulation. (Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 310.)[530]Ib.130-31.[531]Faux's Journal, Oct. 11, 1818,E. W. T.: Thwaites,xi, 171. Faux says that even in Cincinnati itself the bank bills of that town could be exchanged at stores "only 30 or 40 per centum below par, or United States' paper."[532]Flint's Letters,E. W. T. Thwaites,ix, 132-36.[533]In Baltimore Cohens's "lottery and exchange office" issued a list of nearly seventy banks, with rates of prices on their notes. The circular gave notice that the quotations were good for one day only. (Niles,xiv, 396.) At the same time G. & R. Waite, with offices in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, issued a list covering the country from Connecticut to Ohio and Kentucky. (Ib.415.) The rates as given by this firm differed greatly from those published by Cohens.[534]Ib.x, 80.[535]Sumner:Jackson, 229.[536]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 219.[537]Niles,xv, 60.[538]Niles,xiv, 193-96; alsoxv, 434.[539]Ib.xvii, 164.[540]Ib.xiv, 108.[541]A wealthy Richmond merchant who had married a sister of Marshall's wife. (See vol.ii, 172, of this work.)[542]A writ directing the sheriff to seize the goods and chattels of a person to compel him to satisfy an obligation. Bouvier (Rawle's ed.)i, 590.[543]RichmondEnquirer, Jan. 16, 1816.What was the outcome of this incident does not appear. Professor Sumner says that the bank was closed for a few days, but soon opened and went on with its business. (Sumner:Hist. Am. Currency, 74-75.) Sumner fixes the date in 1817, two years after the event.[544]Niles,xiv, 281.[545]Ib.314-15.[546]Ib.333; and for similar cases, seeib.356, 396-97, 428-30. All these accounts were taken from newspapers at the places where criminals were captured.[547]Niles,xiv, 428.[548]Ib.xvi, 147-48; also,ib.360, 373, 390.[549]Ib.179.[550]Ib.210.[551]Ib.208.[552]Ib.210.[553]See Catterall, 39-50.[554]The frauds of the directors and officers of the Bank of the United States were used, however, as the pretext for an effort to repeal its charter. On Feb. 9, 1819, James Johnson of Virginia introduced a resolution for that purpose. (Annals, 15th Cong. 2d Sess.iii, 1140-42.)[555]See Catterall, 32.[556]New Castle County.[557]Niles,xv, 162.[558]Ib.59.[559]Ib.418.[560]Flint's Letters,E.W.T.: Thwaites,ix, 226.[561]They, too, asserted that institution to be the author of their woes, (Niles,xvii, 2.)[562]Catterall, 33-37.[563]Ib.51-53; and see Niles,xv, 25.[564]Catterall, 33.[565]Monster, Hydra, Cerberus, Octopus, and names of similar import were popularly applied to the Bank of the United States. (See Crawford's speech,supra, 175.)[566]Niles,xv, 5.[567]Act of April 3, 1811,Laws of New York, 1811, 205-21.[568]Niles,xvi, 257.[569]Ib.[570]Ib.xvii, 147.[571]"I have known several tocalculateupon the 'relief' from them, just as they would do on an accommodation at bank, or on the payment of debts due to them! If we succeed in such and such a thing, say they—very well; if not, we can get the benefit of the insolvent laws.... Where one prudent and honest man applies for such benefit, one hundred rogues are facilitated in their depredations." (Niles,xvii, 115.)[572]Ib.[573]Ib.xv, 283.[574]The bankruptcy law which Marshall had helped to draw when in Congress (see vol.ii, 481-82, of this work) had been repealed in 1803. (Annals, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 215, 625, 631. For reasons for the repeal seeib.616-22.)[575]Annals, 16th Cong. 1st Sess. 505.[576]Ib.513.[577]Ib.517-18.[578]Flint's Letters,E.W.T.: Thwaites,ix, 225.In reviewingSketches of Americaby Henry Bradshaw Fearon, an Englishman who traveled through the United States, theQuarterly Reviewof London scathingly denounced the frauds perpetrated by means of insolvent laws. (Quarterly Review,xxi, 165.)[579]None of these letters to Marshall have been preserved. Indeed, only a scant half-dozen of the original great number of letters written him even by prominent men during his long life are in existence. For those of men like Story and Pickering we are indebted to copies preserved in their papers.Marshall, at best, was incredibly negligent of his correspondence as he was of all other ordinary details of life. Most other important men of the time kept copies of their letters; Marshall kept none; and if he preserved those written to him, nearly all of them have disappeared.[580]Niles,xv, 385.[581]Ib.[582]Ib.xvi, 261.[583]Ib.xvii, 85.[584]Jefferson to Adams, Nov. 7, 1819,Works: Ford,xii, 145.[585]Niles,xvii, 85.[586]Niles,xvii, 185.[587]Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, May 27, 1819,iv, 375.[588]Ib.391.[589]Collins, 88.[590]"The disappointment is altogether ascribed to the Bank of the U.S." (King to Mason, Feb. 7, 1819, King,vi, 205.) King's testimony is uncommonly trustworthy. His son was an officer of the branch of Chillicothe, Ohio.[591]See Articlex, Section 1, Constitution of Indiana, as adopted June 29, 1816.[592]See Catterall, 64-65, and sources there cited.[593]SpelledSturgison the manuscript records of the Supreme Court.[594]4 Wheaton, 192.[595]4 Wheaton, 192-93.[596]4 Wheaton, 194.[597]Ib.195.[598]4 Wheaton, 196.[599]"No State shall ... emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any ... ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts."[600]4 Wheaton, 196-97.[601]For the proceedings in the Constitutional Convention on this clause, see vol.iii, chap.x, of this work.[602]4 Wheaton, 197.[603]Ib.197-98.[604]4 Wheaton, 198.[605]4 Wheaton, 199.[606]Ib.200.[607]4 Wheaton, 200-01.[608]4 Wheaton, 202.[609]Ib.203-04.[610]4 Wheaton, 205.[611]Ib.206.[612]Niles,xvi, 76.[613]"It will probably, make some great revolutions in property, and raise up many from penury ... and cause others to descend to the condition that becomeshonest men, by compelling a payment of their debts—as every honest man ought to be compelled to do, if ever able.... It ought not to be at any one's discretion to say when, or under whatconvenientcircumstances, he willwipe offhis debts, by the benefit of an insolvent law—as some do every two or three years; or, just as often as they can get credit enough to make any thing by it." (Niles,xvi, 2.)[614]Seeinfra, next chapter.

[437]M'Cullochvs.Maryland, seeinfra, chap.vi.

[438]See vol.ii, 60, of this work.

[439]Sumner:History of American Currency, 63.

[440]See Memorial of the Bank for a recharter, April 20, 1808 (Am. State Papers, Finance,ii, 301), and second Memorial, Dec. 18, 1810 (ib.451-52). Every statement in these petitions was true. See also Dewey:Financial History of the United States, 100, 101.

[441]See vol.ii, 70-71, of this work.

[442]Annals, 1st Cong. 2d. Sess. 1945. By far the strongest objection to a National bank, however, was that it was a monopoly inconsistent with free institutions.

[443]Jefferson to Gallatin, Dec. 13, 1803,Works: Ford:x, 57.

[444]"Fully two thirds of the Bank stock ... were owned in England." (Adams:U.S.v, 328.)

[445]Dewey, 127; and Pitkin:Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States, 130-32.

[446]Adams:U.S.v, 328-29.

[447]Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 118-21.

[448]Ib.153, 201, 308; and see Pitkin, 421.

[449]Adams:U.S.v, 327-28. "They induced one State legislature after another to instruct their senators on the subject." Pitkin, 422.

[450]Ambler:Ritchie, 26-27, 52.

[451]Ib.67.

[452]Branch Hist. Papers, June, 1903, 179.

[453]Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 145.

[454]"It is true, that a branch of the Bank of the United States ... is established at Norfolk; and that a branch of the Bank of Virginia is also established there. But these circumstances furnish no possible motive of avarice to the Virginia Legislature.... They have acted ... from the purest and most honorable motives." (Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 200.)

[455]Pitkin, 421.

[456]The "newspapers teem with the most virulent abuse." (James Flint's Letters from America, inEarly Western Travels: Thwaites,ix, 87.) Even twenty years later Captain Marryat records: "The press in the United States is licentious to the highest possible degree, and defies control.... Every man in America reads his newspaper, and hardly any thing else." (Marryat:Diary in America, 2d Series, 56-59.)

[457]"The Democratic presses ... have ... teemed with the most scurrilous abuse against every member of Congress who has dared to utter a syllable in favor of the renewal of the bank charter." Any member supporting the bank "is instantly charged with being bribed, ... with being corrupt, with having trampled upon the rights and liberties of the people, ... with being guilty of perjury."According to "the rantings of our Democratic editors ... and the denunciations of our public declaimers," the bank "exists under the form of every foul and hateful beast and bird, and creeping thing. It is anHydra; it is aCerberus; it is aGorgon; it is aVulture; it is aViper...."Shall we tamely act under the lash of this tyranny of the press?... I most solemnly protest.... To tyranny, under whatever form it may be exercised, I declare open and interminable war ... whether the tyrant is an irresponsible editor or a despotic Monarch." (Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 145.)

According to "the rantings of our Democratic editors ... and the denunciations of our public declaimers," the bank "exists under the form of every foul and hateful beast and bird, and creeping thing. It is anHydra; it is aCerberus; it is aGorgon; it is aVulture; it is aViper....

"Shall we tamely act under the lash of this tyranny of the press?... I most solemnly protest.... To tyranny, under whatever form it may be exercised, I declare open and interminable war ... whether the tyrant is an irresponsible editor or a despotic Monarch." (Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 145.)

[458]Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 826.

[459]Ib.347.

[460]Pitkin, 430.

[461]Adams to Rush, Dec. 27, 1810,Old Family Letters, 272.

[462]Sumner:Andrew Jackson, 229.

[463]Dewey, 145.

[464]Twenty-one State banks were employed as Government depositories after the destruction of the first Bank of the United States (Ib.128.)

[465]Dewey, 127.

[466]Adams to Rush, July 3, 1812,Old Family Letters, 299.

[467]William Faux's Journal,E. W. T.: Thwaites,xi, 207.

[468]Speech of Hanson in the House, Nov. 28, 1814,Annals, 13th Cong. 3d Sess. 656.

[469]Catterall:Second Bank of the United States, 13-17.

[470]Calhoun's bill.

[471]Webster to his brother, Nov. 29, 1814, Van Tyne, 55.

[472]Webster's bill.

[473]Annals, 13th Cong. 3d Sess. 189-91; Richardson,i, 555-57.

[474]Richardson,i, 565-66. Four years afterwards President Monroe told his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, that Jefferson, Madison, and himself considered all Constitutional objections to the Bank as having been "settled by twenty years of practice and acquiescence under the first bank." (Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams,iv, 499, Jan. 8, 1820.)

[475]Annals, 14th Cong. 1st Sess. 280-81.

[476]Annals, 1st Cong. 2d and 3d Sess. 2375-82; and 14th Cong. 1st Sess. 1812-25; also Dewey, 150-51.

[477]Catterall, 22.

[478]Dewey, 144.

[479]Sumner:Hist. Am. Currency, 70.

[480]In November, 1818, Niles estimated that there were about four hundred banks in the country with eight thousand "managers and clerks," costing $2,000,000, annually. (Niles,xv, 162.)

[481]"The present multitude of them ... is no more fitted to the condition of society, than a long-tailed coat becomes a sailor on ship-board." (Ib.xi, 130.)

[482]King to his son, May 1, 1816, King,vi, 22.

[483]King to Gore, May 14, 1816,Ib.23-25.

[484]Niles,xiv, 109.

[485]Ib.xvi, 257.

[486]Niles,xvi, 257.

[487]Ib.xiv, 110.

[488]Ib.195-96.

[489]"Niles'Weekly Registeris ... an excellent repository of facts and documents." (Jefferson to Crawford, Feb. 11, 1815,Works: Ford,xi. 453.)

[490]Niles,xiv, 426-28.

[491]Niles,xiv, 2-3.

[492]"Report of the Committee on the Currency of this [New York] State," Feb. 24, 1818,ib.39-42; also partially reproduced inAmerican History told by Contemporaries: Hart,iii, 441-45.

[493]"Report of Committee on the Currency," New York,supra, 184.

[494]Niles,xiv, 108.

[495]Jefferson to Yancey, Jan. 6, 1816,Works: Ford,xi, 494.

[496]Dewey, 144; and Sumner:Hist. Am. Currency, 75.

[497]Niles proposed a new bank to be called "The Ragbank of the Universe," main office at "Lottery-ville," and branches at "Hookstown," "Owl Creek," "Botany Bay," and "Twisters-burg." Directors were to be empowered also "to put offices on wheels, on ship-board, or in balloons"; stock to be "one thousand million of old shirts." (Niles,xiv, 227.)

[498]Dewey, 144.

[499]Ib.153-54.

[500]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 136; and see "Report of the Committee on the Currency," New York,supra, 184.

[501]Tyler:Tyler,i, 302; Niles,xi, 130.

[502]Niles,xi, 128.

[503]Ib.iv, 109; Collins:Historical Sketches of Kentucky, 88.These were in addition to the branches of the Bank of Kentucky and of the Bank of the United States. Including them, the number of chartered banks in that State was fifty-eight by the close of 1818. Of the towns where new banks were established during that year, Burksville had 106 inhabitants; Barboursville, 55; Hopkinsville, 131; Greenville, 75; thirteen others had fewer than 500 inhabitants. The "capital" of the banks in such places was never less than $100,000, but that at Glasgow, with 244 inhabitants, had a capital of $200,000, and several other villages were similarly favored. For full list see Niles,xiv, 109.

[503]Ib.iv, 109; Collins:Historical Sketches of Kentucky, 88.

These were in addition to the branches of the Bank of Kentucky and of the Bank of the United States. Including them, the number of chartered banks in that State was fifty-eight by the close of 1818. Of the towns where new banks were established during that year, Burksville had 106 inhabitants; Barboursville, 55; Hopkinsville, 131; Greenville, 75; thirteen others had fewer than 500 inhabitants. The "capital" of the banks in such places was never less than $100,000, but that at Glasgow, with 244 inhabitants, had a capital of $200,000, and several other villages were similarly favored. For full list see Niles,xiv, 109.

[504]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 133.

[505]Niles,xvii, 85.

[506]John Woods's Two Years' Residence,E. W. T.: Thwaites,x, 236.

[507]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 133-34.

[508]Ib.136.

[509]Niles,xiv, 162.

[510]Woods's Two Years' Residence,E. W. T.: Thwaites,x, 274-78: and Flint's Letters,ib.ix, 69.In southwestern Indiana, in 1818, Faux "saw nothing ... but miserable log holes, and a mean ville of eight or ten huts or cabins, sadly neglected farms, and indolent, dirty, sickly, wild-looking inhabitants." (Faux's Journal, Nov. 1, 1818,ib.xi, 213-14.) He describes Kentucky houses as "miserable holes, having one room only," where "all cook, eat, sleep, breed, and die, males and females, all together." (Ib.185, and see 202.)

[510]Woods's Two Years' Residence,E. W. T.: Thwaites,x, 274-78: and Flint's Letters,ib.ix, 69.

In southwestern Indiana, in 1818, Faux "saw nothing ... but miserable log holes, and a mean ville of eight or ten huts or cabins, sadly neglected farms, and indolent, dirty, sickly, wild-looking inhabitants." (Faux's Journal, Nov. 1, 1818,ib.xi, 213-14.) He describes Kentucky houses as "miserable holes, having one room only," where "all cook, eat, sleep, breed, and die, males and females, all together." (Ib.185, and see 202.)

[511]For shocking and almost unbelievable conditions of living among the settlers see Faux's Journal,E. W. T.: Thwaites,xi, 226, 231, 252-53, 268-69.

[512]"We landed for some whiskey; for our men would do nothing without." (Woods's Two Years' Residence,ib.x, 245, 317.) "Excessive drinking seems the all-pervading, easily-besetting sin." (Faux's Journal, Nov. 3, 1818,ib.xi, 213.) This continued for many years and was as marked in the East as in the West. (See Marryat, 2d Series, 37-41.)There was, however, a large and ever-increasing number who hearkened to those wonderful men, the circuit-riding preachers, who did so much to build up moral and religious America. Most people belonged to some church, and at the camp meetings and revivals, multitudes received conviction.The student should carefully read theAutobiography of Peter Cartwright, edited by W. P. Strickland. This book is an invaluable historical source and is highly interesting. See also Schermerhorn and Mills:A Correct View of that part of the United States which lies west of the Allegany Mountains, with regard to Religion and Morals.Great Revival in the West, by Catharine C. Cleveland, is a careful and trustworthy account of religious conditions before the War of 1812. It has a complete bibliography.

There was, however, a large and ever-increasing number who hearkened to those wonderful men, the circuit-riding preachers, who did so much to build up moral and religious America. Most people belonged to some church, and at the camp meetings and revivals, multitudes received conviction.

The student should carefully read theAutobiography of Peter Cartwright, edited by W. P. Strickland. This book is an invaluable historical source and is highly interesting. See also Schermerhorn and Mills:A Correct View of that part of the United States which lies west of the Allegany Mountains, with regard to Religion and Morals.Great Revival in the West, by Catharine C. Cleveland, is a careful and trustworthy account of religious conditions before the War of 1812. It has a complete bibliography.

[513]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites, 153; also Schermerhorn and Mills, 17-18.

[514]"Nature is the agriculturist here [near Princeton, Ind.]; speculation instead of cultivation, is the order of the day amongst men." (Thomas Hulme's Journal, E. W. T.: Thwaites,x, 62; see Faux's Journal,ib.xi, 227.)

[515]Faux's Journal,ib.216, 236, 242-43.

[516]Ib.214.

[517]See vol.i, chap,vii, of this work.

[518]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 87; Woods's Two Years Residence,ib.x, 255. "I saw a man this day ... his nose bitten off close down to its root, in a fight with a nose-loving neighbour." (Faux's Journal,ib.xi, 222; and see Strickland, 24-25.)

[519]The reports of American conditions by British travelers, although from unsympathetic pens and much exaggerated, were substantially true. Thus Europe, and especially the United Kingdom, conceived for Americans that profound contempt which was to endure for generations."Such is the land of Jonathan," declared theEdinburgh Reviewin an analysis in 1820 (xxxiii, 78-80) of a book entitledStatistical Annals of the United States, by Adam Seybert. "He must not ... allow himself to be dazzled by that galaxy of epithets by which his orators and newspaper scribblers endeavour to persuade their supporters that they are the greatest, the most refined, the most enlightened, and the most moral people upon earth.... They have hitherto given no indications of genius, and made no approaches to the heroic, either in their morality or character...."During the thirty or forty years of their independence, they have done absolutely nothing for the Sciences, for the Arts, for Literature, or even for statesman-like studies of Politics or Political Economy.... In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones have they analyzed? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans?—what have they done in the mathematics...? under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a Slave, whom his fellow-creatures may buy and sell and torture?"

"Such is the land of Jonathan," declared theEdinburgh Reviewin an analysis in 1820 (xxxiii, 78-80) of a book entitledStatistical Annals of the United States, by Adam Seybert. "He must not ... allow himself to be dazzled by that galaxy of epithets by which his orators and newspaper scribblers endeavour to persuade their supporters that they are the greatest, the most refined, the most enlightened, and the most moral people upon earth.... They have hitherto given no indications of genius, and made no approaches to the heroic, either in their morality or character....

"During the thirty or forty years of their independence, they have done absolutely nothing for the Sciences, for the Arts, for Literature, or even for statesman-like studies of Politics or Political Economy.... In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones have they analyzed? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans?—what have they done in the mathematics...? under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a Slave, whom his fellow-creatures may buy and sell and torture?"

[520]Nevertheless, these very settlers had qualities of sound, clean citizenship; and beneath their roughness and crudity were noble aspirations. For a sympathetic and scholarly treatment of this phase of the subject see Pease:Frontier State,i, 69.

[521]Faux's Journal,E. W. T.: Thwaites,xi, 246.

[522]Randolph to Quincy, Aug. 16, 1812,Quincy: Quincy, 270.

[523]Marryat, 2d Series, 1.

[524]See vol.i, chap,vii, of this work.

[525]Marryat, 1st Series, 15.

[526]Marryat, 2d Series, 176.

[527]Woods's Two Years' Residence,E. W. T.: Thwaites,x, 325.

[528]Niles,xiv, 2.

[529]See McMaster,iv, 287. This continued even after the people had at last become suspicious of unlicensed banks. In 1820, at Bloomington, Ohio, a hamlet of "ten houses ... in the edge of the prairie ... a [bank] company was formed, plates engraved, and the bank notes brought to the spot." Failing to secure a charter, the adventurers sold their outfit at auction, fictitious names were signed to the notes, which were then put into fraudulent circulation. (Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 310.)

[530]Ib.130-31.

[531]Faux's Journal, Oct. 11, 1818,E. W. T.: Thwaites,xi, 171. Faux says that even in Cincinnati itself the bank bills of that town could be exchanged at stores "only 30 or 40 per centum below par, or United States' paper."

[532]Flint's Letters,E. W. T. Thwaites,ix, 132-36.

[533]In Baltimore Cohens's "lottery and exchange office" issued a list of nearly seventy banks, with rates of prices on their notes. The circular gave notice that the quotations were good for one day only. (Niles,xiv, 396.) At the same time G. & R. Waite, with offices in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, issued a list covering the country from Connecticut to Ohio and Kentucky. (Ib.415.) The rates as given by this firm differed greatly from those published by Cohens.

[534]Ib.x, 80.

[535]Sumner:Jackson, 229.

[536]Flint's Letters,E. W. T.: Thwaites,ix, 219.

[537]Niles,xv, 60.

[538]Niles,xiv, 193-96; alsoxv, 434.

[539]Ib.xvii, 164.

[540]Ib.xiv, 108.

[541]A wealthy Richmond merchant who had married a sister of Marshall's wife. (See vol.ii, 172, of this work.)

[542]A writ directing the sheriff to seize the goods and chattels of a person to compel him to satisfy an obligation. Bouvier (Rawle's ed.)i, 590.

[543]RichmondEnquirer, Jan. 16, 1816.What was the outcome of this incident does not appear. Professor Sumner says that the bank was closed for a few days, but soon opened and went on with its business. (Sumner:Hist. Am. Currency, 74-75.) Sumner fixes the date in 1817, two years after the event.

[543]RichmondEnquirer, Jan. 16, 1816.

What was the outcome of this incident does not appear. Professor Sumner says that the bank was closed for a few days, but soon opened and went on with its business. (Sumner:Hist. Am. Currency, 74-75.) Sumner fixes the date in 1817, two years after the event.

[544]Niles,xiv, 281.

[545]Ib.314-15.

[546]Ib.333; and for similar cases, seeib.356, 396-97, 428-30. All these accounts were taken from newspapers at the places where criminals were captured.

[547]Niles,xiv, 428.

[548]Ib.xvi, 147-48; also,ib.360, 373, 390.

[549]Ib.179.

[550]Ib.210.

[551]Ib.208.

[552]Ib.210.

[553]See Catterall, 39-50.

[554]The frauds of the directors and officers of the Bank of the United States were used, however, as the pretext for an effort to repeal its charter. On Feb. 9, 1819, James Johnson of Virginia introduced a resolution for that purpose. (Annals, 15th Cong. 2d Sess.iii, 1140-42.)

[555]See Catterall, 32.

[556]New Castle County.

[557]Niles,xv, 162.

[558]Ib.59.

[559]Ib.418.

[560]Flint's Letters,E.W.T.: Thwaites,ix, 226.

[561]They, too, asserted that institution to be the author of their woes, (Niles,xvii, 2.)

[562]Catterall, 33-37.

[563]Ib.51-53; and see Niles,xv, 25.

[564]Catterall, 33.

[565]Monster, Hydra, Cerberus, Octopus, and names of similar import were popularly applied to the Bank of the United States. (See Crawford's speech,supra, 175.)

[566]Niles,xv, 5.

[567]Act of April 3, 1811,Laws of New York, 1811, 205-21.

[568]Niles,xvi, 257.

[569]Ib.

[570]Ib.xvii, 147.

[571]"I have known several tocalculateupon the 'relief' from them, just as they would do on an accommodation at bank, or on the payment of debts due to them! If we succeed in such and such a thing, say they—very well; if not, we can get the benefit of the insolvent laws.... Where one prudent and honest man applies for such benefit, one hundred rogues are facilitated in their depredations." (Niles,xvii, 115.)

[572]Ib.

[573]Ib.xv, 283.

[574]The bankruptcy law which Marshall had helped to draw when in Congress (see vol.ii, 481-82, of this work) had been repealed in 1803. (Annals, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 215, 625, 631. For reasons for the repeal seeib.616-22.)

[575]Annals, 16th Cong. 1st Sess. 505.

[576]Ib.513.

[577]Ib.517-18.

[578]Flint's Letters,E.W.T.: Thwaites,ix, 225.In reviewingSketches of Americaby Henry Bradshaw Fearon, an Englishman who traveled through the United States, theQuarterly Reviewof London scathingly denounced the frauds perpetrated by means of insolvent laws. (Quarterly Review,xxi, 165.)

[578]Flint's Letters,E.W.T.: Thwaites,ix, 225.

In reviewingSketches of Americaby Henry Bradshaw Fearon, an Englishman who traveled through the United States, theQuarterly Reviewof London scathingly denounced the frauds perpetrated by means of insolvent laws. (Quarterly Review,xxi, 165.)

[579]None of these letters to Marshall have been preserved. Indeed, only a scant half-dozen of the original great number of letters written him even by prominent men during his long life are in existence. For those of men like Story and Pickering we are indebted to copies preserved in their papers.Marshall, at best, was incredibly negligent of his correspondence as he was of all other ordinary details of life. Most other important men of the time kept copies of their letters; Marshall kept none; and if he preserved those written to him, nearly all of them have disappeared.

Marshall, at best, was incredibly negligent of his correspondence as he was of all other ordinary details of life. Most other important men of the time kept copies of their letters; Marshall kept none; and if he preserved those written to him, nearly all of them have disappeared.

[580]Niles,xv, 385.

[581]Ib.

[582]Ib.xvi, 261.

[583]Ib.xvii, 85.

[584]Jefferson to Adams, Nov. 7, 1819,Works: Ford,xii, 145.

[585]Niles,xvii, 85.

[586]Niles,xvii, 185.

[587]Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, May 27, 1819,iv, 375.

[588]Ib.391.

[589]Collins, 88.

[590]"The disappointment is altogether ascribed to the Bank of the U.S." (King to Mason, Feb. 7, 1819, King,vi, 205.) King's testimony is uncommonly trustworthy. His son was an officer of the branch of Chillicothe, Ohio.

[591]See Articlex, Section 1, Constitution of Indiana, as adopted June 29, 1816.

[592]See Catterall, 64-65, and sources there cited.

[593]SpelledSturgison the manuscript records of the Supreme Court.

[594]4 Wheaton, 192.

[595]4 Wheaton, 192-93.

[596]4 Wheaton, 194.

[597]Ib.195.

[598]4 Wheaton, 196.

[599]"No State shall ... emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any ... ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts."

[600]4 Wheaton, 196-97.

[601]For the proceedings in the Constitutional Convention on this clause, see vol.iii, chap.x, of this work.

[602]4 Wheaton, 197.

[603]Ib.197-98.

[604]4 Wheaton, 198.

[605]4 Wheaton, 199.

[606]Ib.200.

[607]4 Wheaton, 200-01.

[608]4 Wheaton, 202.

[609]Ib.203-04.

[610]4 Wheaton, 205.

[611]Ib.206.

[612]Niles,xvi, 76.

[613]"It will probably, make some great revolutions in property, and raise up many from penury ... and cause others to descend to the condition that becomeshonest men, by compelling a payment of their debts—as every honest man ought to be compelled to do, if ever able.... It ought not to be at any one's discretion to say when, or under whatconvenientcircumstances, he willwipe offhis debts, by the benefit of an insolvent law—as some do every two or three years; or, just as often as they can get credit enough to make any thing by it." (Niles,xvi, 2.)

[614]Seeinfra, next chapter.

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