ave felt but
one class of these dangers exhibited in the contest waged by the Bank
of the United States against the Government for the last four years.
Happily they have been obviated for the present by the indignant
resistance of the people, but we should recollect that the principle
whence they sprung is an ever-active one, which will not fail to renew
its efforts in the same and in other forms so long as there is a hope
of success, founded either on the inattention of the people or the
treachery of their representatives to the subtle progress of its
influence. The bank is, in fact, but one of the fruits of a system at
war with the genius of all our institutions--a system founded upon a
political creed the fundamental principle of which is a distrust of
the popular will as a safe regulator of political power, and whose
great ultimate object and inevitable result, should it prevail, is the
consolidation of all power in our system in one central government.
Lavish public disbursements and corporations with exclusive privileges
would be its substitutes for the original and as yet sound checks and
balances of the Constitution--the means by whose silent and secret
operation a control would be exercised by the few over the political
conduct of the many by first acquiring that control over the labor and
earnings of the great body of the people. Wherever this spirit has
effected an alliance with political power, tyranny and despotism have
been the fruit. If it is ever used for the ends of government, it has to
be incessantly watched, or it corrupts the sources of the public virtue
and agitates the country with questions unfavorable to the harmonious
and steady pursuit of its true interests.

We are now to see whether, in the present favorable condition of the
country, we can not take an effectual stand against this spirit of
monopoly, and practically prove in respect to the currency as well as
other important interests that there is no necessity for so extensive a
resort to it as that which has been heretofore practiced. The experience
of another year has confirmed the utter fallacy of the idea that the
Bank of the United States was necessary as a fiscal agent of the
Government. Without its aid as such, indeed, in despite of all the
embarrassment it was in its power to create, the revenue has been paid
with punctuality by our citizens, the business of exchange, both
foreign and domestic, has been conducted with convenience, a