Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

1830-1842.] THE BANKS AND THE PEOPLE.

153

things unnecessarily for a single day would be the grossest
dishonesty.
"These measures should be insisted on as indispensable to
a sound state of the moral and political body:
" 1. Let the banks resume specie payments at the earliest
practicable day.
"2. Expel from circulation all notes under $20-not too
hastily, but gradually, and without doing violence to existing
interests.
"3. Establish some general law by which capital may be
employed in banking with special acts of incorporation, so
that the legislative body may not be in danger of being corrupted by combinations to control it for mercenary ends.
"4. Separate the government from all banking institutions
in the collection and disbursement of its revenue.
"If these objects are not accomplished I shall have serious
apprehensions for the purity of the government. Corruption
and profligacy are inseparable from the control of moneyed
influences. Banks accomplish their objects by loans and discounts; these appliances are a part of their machinery, and
the suggestion that such means may not be legitimately employed for the purpose of promoting the interest of an institution by gaining over individuals to its views would be considered, by most of them, as savoring of squeamishness, if not
of absolute folly. The more distant such establishments are
from the government the better. They are the ministers of
commerce; they should desire to serve no other master.
Above all, should they not desire to play the master over
those whose breath has warmed them into life, the people. I
am sorry to say that too many who stand to these institutions
in the relation of stockholders, or in the still more delicate
one of debtors, are busy in seeking to give to our local politics
a direction in favor of them-in other words, to protect the
banks against the people. These movements are exceedingly
ill-judged. There is no danger that the people will act harshly; and the distrust which is manifested as to their intentions