Page:Democracy in America (Reeve).djvu/476

 the pursuit of his revenge by the conviction that he is supported by the secret propensities of the majority. The bank may be regarded as the great monetary tie of the Union, just as congress is the great legislative tie; and the same passions which tend to render the states independent of the central power, contribute to the overthrow of the bank.

The bank of the United States always holds a great number of the notes issued by the provincial banks, which it can at any time oblige them to convert into cash. It has itself nothing to fear from a similar demand, as the extent of its resources, enables it to meet all claims. But the existence of the provincial banks is thus threatened, and their operations are restricted, since they are only able to issue a quantity of notes duly proportioned to their capital. They submit with impatience to this salutary control. The newspapers which they have bought over, and the president, whose interest renders him their instrument, attack the bank with the greatest vehemence. They rouse the local passions, and the blind democratic instinct of the country to aid their cause; and they assert that the bank-directors form a permanent aristocratic body, whose influence must ultimately be felt in the government, and must affect those principles of equality upon which society rests in America.

The contest between the bank and its opponents is only an incident in the great struggle which is going on in America between the provinces and the central power; between the spirit of democratic independence, and the spirit of gradation and subordination. I do not mean that the enemies of the bank are identically the same individuals, who, on other points, attack the federal government; but I assert that the attacks directed against the bank of the United States, originate in the same propensities which militate against the federal government; and that the very numerous opponents of the former afford a deplorable symptom of the decreasing support of the latter.

The Union has never displayed so much weakness as in the celebrated question of the tariff. The wars of the French revolution and of 1812 had created manufacturing establishments in the north of the Union, by cutting off all free communication between America and Europe. When peace was concluded, and the