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

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MEMOIRS OF JOHN ADAMS DIX.

interest in the State was most decidedly in favor of sustaining
both the State and National administrations."
It took but a very little time, however, to pull their house
down about the heads of those who deemed themselves secure
for years to come-the customary successes turned to ruinous defeats. The reverses of the Democratic party were due
mainly to their position on those questions of finance which so
often frustrate the wisdom of men and make political diviners
mad. The suspension of specie payments in the spring of
1837, just before the adjournment of the New York Legislature, became general throughout the United States, and spread
consternation in every direction. It would be difficult for one
outside the political field to enumerate, or even to comprehend, the varied phenomena of the agitation of that day. But
in reading the history of the period I was struck by the prominence given to the question about the disposal of the funds of
the government. The revenues of the nation: where should
they be kept? Not in a national bank; that plan had been
tried; and General Jackson had destroyed the Bank of the
United States, to the satisfaction of local institutions, which
found their profit in the overthrow of the gigantic monster.
In those State banks, then? That plan had also been tried, and
with bad results: they were regarded by the President and
his leading advisers as unsafe. The conclusion reached was,
that the government should do its own banking business;
that there ought to be a total separation of the business and
property of the National Government from the business and
concerns of State institutions. President Van Buren urged
this on Congress in a Message recommending a scheme of an
Independent Treasury. An extra session of Congress was
called for September 4 to consider this subject. The result
was to array the local banking interest against the administration.
Then there was more trouble, and in more dangerous quarters, about the currency. An act had passed the Legislature,
March 31,1835, prohibiting the issue of bank bills below the