Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/280



CHAPTER XIII.—.

§ 3.—The Inflation of 1835 and 1836.

After the commercial crisis of 1837 broke out, a great deal of writing and talking was done in this country in respect to banking and currency. The disputants all traced the trouble to either one or other of the acts of Jackson's administration; or of the opposition; or of the United States Bank; or to the lack of a United States Bank. Of course party spirit and the desire to win party advantages had a very large share in all these arguments. It is very doubtful, however, if any or all of these events and proceedings had more than a contributory share in producing the result. One of the most important facts, to which leading influence must be attributed, is the great and really irrational importance which was attached by Europeans to the extinguishment of the debt of the United States, and their exaggerated willingness, on that account, to lend their capital in America. There was no removal of the deposits in England, and no lack of a national bank in France. The whole civilized world shared in the convulsion. It seems to have been, when properly regarded, a revulsion in the midst of a great expansion of industrial power, which expansion produced modifications of the industrial organization which could not well take place without some greater or lesser catastrophes.

In England, after 1825, the factory system, which had been growing up for fifty years, had reached a stage of completeness. There was a definite extension in the application of power and machinery to the textile industries. After 1830 began the construction of railroads. The multiplication of joint stock banks, upon which the whole subsequent mischief was charged by a great many English writers, was incidental to this. At that time the banking system of England was carried on very much as that of America was. There were constant expansions and contractions of the circulation, and the writers on financial subjects directed their attention to these fluctuations as the controlling causes of the phenomena which were noticed. There was very general dissatisfaction with the management of the Bank of England, and