that it ought not to
be continued, and at the end of twenty years Congress refused to
recharter it. It would have been fortunate for the country, and saved
thousands from bankruptcy and ruin, had our public men of 1816 resisted
the temporary pressure of the times upon our financial and pecuniary
interests and refused to charter the second bank. Of this the country
became abundantly satisfied, and at the close of its twenty years'
duration, as in the case of the first bank, it also ceased to exist.
Under the repeated blows of _President Jackson_ it reeled and fell, and
a subsequent attempt to charter a similar institution was arrested by
the _veto_ of President Tyler.

_Mr. Madison_, in yielding his signature to the charter of 1816, did so
upon the ground of the respect due to precedents; and, as he
subsequently declared--

The Bank of the United States, though on the original question held
to be unconstitutional, received the Executive signature.

It is probable that neither the bank of 1791 nor that of 1816 would have
been chartered but for the embarrassments of the Government in its
finances, the derangement of the currency, and the pecuniary pressure
which existed, the first the consequence of the War of the Revolution
and the second the consequence of the War of 1812. Both were resorted to
in the delusive hope that they would restore public credit and afford
relief to the Government and to the business of the country.

Those of our public men who opposed the whole "American system"
at its commencement and throughout its progress foresaw and predicted
that it was fraught with incalculable mischiefs and must result in
serious injury to the best interests of the country. For a series of
years their wise counsels were unheeded, and the system was established.
It was soon apparent that its practical operation was unequal and unjust
upon different portions of the country and upon the people engaged
in different pursuits. All were equally entitled to the favor and
protection of the Government. It fostered and elevated the money power
and enriched the favored few by taxing labor, and at the expense of the
many. Its effect was to "make the rich richer and the poor poorer." Its
tendency was to create distinctions in society based on wealth and to
give to the favored classes undue control and sway in our Government. It
was an organized money power, which resisted the popular will and sought
to shape and control the