convenience of the people." It mattered little to him that Mr. Gallatin
had only recently pointed out that from the year 1791 the operations of
the Treasury had, without interruption, been carried on through the
medium of banks; during the years 1811 to 1814, by the state banks, with
a result which no one had as yet forgotten; before and since that brief
interval through the Bank of the United States. Enough for Taney, that
it was the will of his imperious master, 'the pugnacious animal,' as
Gallatin aptly termed him.

In October, 1834, Taney's successor in the Treasury, Levi Woodbury, gave
notice that the remaining debt, unredeemed after January 1, 1835, would
cease to bear interest and be promptly paid on application to the
commissioners of loans in the several States. On December 8, 1835, Mr.
Woodbury reported "an unprecedented spectacle presented to the world of
a government virtually without any debts and without any direct
taxation." The surplus revenues, about thirty-seven and a half millions
of dollars, had by an act of the previous session been distributed among
the several States. But the secretary and the country soon found that
they were on dangerous ground. In December, 1837, the same secretary,
alarmed at his responsibility, said to Congress, in warning words, "We
are without any national debt to absorb and regulate surpluses, or any
adequate supply of banking institutions which provide a sound currency
for general purposes by paying specie on demand, or which are in a
situation fully to command confidence for keeping, disbursing, and
transferring the public funds in a satisfactory manner."

The Bank of the United States, on the expiration of its charter in
March, 1836, accepted a charter from the State of Pennsylvania; but,
though its influence continued to be as great, its direction was no
longer the same. Abandoning its legitimate business, it speculated in
merchandise, and even kept an agent in New Orleans to compete with the
Barings in purchases of the cotton crop as a basis for exchange.
Precisely as in 1811, after the withdrawal of the control of the Bank of
the United States, the state banks ran a wild career of speculation.
From 1830 to 1837 three hundred new banks sprang up with an additional
capital of one hundred and forty-five millions, doubling, as twenty
years before, the banking capital of the country. This volume the
deposits of the Treasury continued to swell. Mr. Woodbury was the first