Page:Forgotten Man and Other Essays.djvu/403

 elements, the tariff element, the movement of population to the new land, the fiscal operations of the general government, the revolution in the coinage, the mania for public improvements, the reckless creation of state debts, and the war on the United States Bank. Any one of these might have accounted for a financial crisis in an old country, and the fact that the catastrophe produced by all combined was not greater here is a striking proof of the vitality of the country and the wonderful advantages which it was wasting.

On the four or five years of inflated prosperity there followed four or five years of the most slow and grinding distress. 1843 is the year of lowest prices in our history, and the year of severest restriction in industry. In 1842 the United States Treasury was under protest and actually bankrupt, and American credit was so low that an agent of the general government who was sent to Europe to try to place a loan of only twelve million dollars there could not do it at all. In that same year, however, out of what income it did have, the general government distributed six hundred thousand dollars, which came from land, amongst the states. As for calling back any of the twenty-eight millions deposited with the states, no effort of the kind was ever made. The states were complaining that the fourth installment, to which they had a right, had never been paid to them. The question is sometimes mooted whether a national debt is a curse or a blessing. There can be no doubt whatever that a national surplus is a curse.

In the years before 1837 there had been a great deal of eloquence spent upon "the credit system." After 1837 this matter was dropped. By the credit system they meant the multiplication of bank notes which were false promises. The notion was that the system of using these in business gave poor men an easier chance to get rich. At first they were loaned easily at low rates. Then, as prices rose and