wer of regulating the currency
throughout the United States. In other words, it asserted (and it
undoubtedly possessed) the power to make money plenty or scarce at its
pleasure, at any time and in any quarter of the Union, by controlling
the issues of other banks and permitting an expansion or compelling
a general contraction of the circulating medium, according to its own
will. The other banking institutions were sensible of its strength, and
they soon generally became its obedient instruments, ready at all times
to execute its mandates; and with the banks necessarily went also that
numerous class of persons in our commercial cities who depend altogether
on bank credits for their solvency and means of business, and who are
therefore obliged, for their own safety, to propitiate the favor of
the money power by distinguished zeal and devotion in its service.
The result of the ill-advised legislation which established this great
monopoly was to concentrate the whole moneyed power of the Union, with
its boundless means of corruption and its numerous dependents, under the
direction and command of one acknowledged head, thus organizing this
particular interest as one body and securing to it unity and concert of
action throughout the United States, and enabling it to bring forward
upon any occasion its entire and undivided strength to support or defeat
any measure of the Government. In the hands of this formidable power,
thus perfectly organized, was also placed unlimited dominion over the
amount of the circulating medium, giving it the power to regulate the
value of property and the fruits of labor in every quarter of the Union,
and to bestow prosperity or bring ruin upon any city or section of the
country as might best comport with its own interest or policy.

We are not left to conjecture how the moneyed power, thus organized and
with such a weapon in its hands, would be likely to use it. The distress
and alarm which pervaded and agitated the whole country when the Bank
of the United States waged war upon the people in order to compel them
to submit to its demands can not yet be forgotten. The ruthless and
unsparing temper with which whole cities and communities were oppressed,
individuals impoverished and ruined, and a scene of cheerful prosperity
suddenly changed into one of gloom and despondency ought to be indelibly
impressed on the memory of the people of the United States. If such was
its power in a time of peace, what