This statement and its context is of special interest as it contains the germs of one of the major theses of Social Credit [Douglas,
Economic
Democ- racy, 112 ff.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
.
It is not to be supposed.
" that our own gold will remain with us, when an exporter can gain a dollar upon every fifteen that he carries out"
[ibid. , 443].
68. 6 suspensions: Benton showed Hamil- ton's plan was the eventual elimination of foreign coins, which would be replaced by an American currency. Since that didn't hap- pen, and the law to exclude foreign coins didn't work, Congress suspended it for three years. Six further 3-year suspensions became necessary and they didn't end until 1819
[88:75].
69. au TIS: H, "No one" [74: 17]. Used here as an intensive.
70. Nothing . . . West: The prohibition of foreign coins had a devastating effect upon the West: "for the coinage of trade and exchanges, to carry money from the Atlantic States to the West" [TYV, I, 446].
71. Brooks: B. Adams, 1848-1927, son the Charles Francis A. and brother of Henry Adams, 1838-1918. Both were American his- torians. Pound said of B. Adams: "His cyclic version of the West shows us a consecutive struggle against four great rackets, namely the exploitation of the fear of the unknown (black magic, etc. ), the exploitation of vio- lence, the exploitation or the monopolisa-
can slave-trade? "
lQA,519].
[Nevins,
Diary o f
62. Roman law: Pound interpolation con- cerning the two-third's majority required to
? 520
tion of cultivable land, and the exploitation
of money" [SF, 307] ,
72. grandfather: John Quincy Adams
[34:passim].
73. old John: President John Adams [31:15]. Said Pound, "The tragedy of the U. S. A. over 160 years is the decline of Adarnses. More and more we cd. , if we ex- amined events, see that John Adams had the
corrective for Jefferson" [GK,254].
74. Under . . . four: The effect of the law
excluding foreign coinage even resulted in the export of U. S. -minted coins, which made the law "the curse and the nuisance of the country. . . . The custom? house returns showed the large exportation of domestic coins. . . . In the year 1832, it amounted to $2,058,474" [TYV, I, 447].
75. . . . the highest: Benton said that regu- lating the currency "was one of the highest and most delicate acts of sovereign power"
[ibid. , 449].
76. tho charter: The bank helped create the
coinage vacuum so it could float its own paper money: "Although forbid by her char- ter to deal in coin, she has employed her branches to gather $40,040,000 of coin from the states; a large part of which she admits that she has sold and transported to Europe" [ibid. , 448].
77. POWER . . . : The power to coin and regulate the currency is a constitutional question: "this power is vested in the federal government not in one department of it, but in the joint action of the three departments"
[ibid. , 449].
89/594 79. Gold . . . issue: In Del Mar's History of
Monetary Systems, we read, "The right to coin money has always been and still re- mains the surest mark and announcement of sovereignty" [HMS, 66]. Del Mar [96: 119] earlier said: "N0 language is more positive than that of Mommsen . . . in laying down the following institute: that Rome never per- mitted her vassals to strike gold. " He devel- ops in this chapter the use of other metals [ibid. , 34-35]. In the Bridson interviews Pound reiterated one of his long-held theses: "Gold was under the Pontifex or the Em- pire; silver was a wangle farmed out to sena- tors . . . an d the bronze, the small coinage, was under certain privileged municipalities. That is to say, enough local control to pre- vent the local economic order being ruined from the center [Bridson, "An Interview," 179].
80. Benton's . . . : These lines refer to the power to issue. The answer to the question "when? " was, according to Benton, when the national government used its sovereignty and when there was national, regulated met? al currency in circulation. "Why? " Because if the national government issued its own money it would not have to pay interest, as it did on the bank's paper money, and no public debt would build up and be owed to the bank [88:137, 139; and 26 above].
8! . Voltaire: [65:108]. He said: "I have a friend . . . who is a director in the Bank of France, who writes to me when they are going to make money plenty, and make stocks rise, and then I give orders to my broker to sell; and he writes to me when they are going to make money scarce . . . and then I write to my broker to buy; and
89/594-595
83. Del Mar: Alexander D. M. [96: 119].
84. "ratios . . . Orient. ": After Julius Caesar conquered Egypt (48 B. C. ), he found that the difference in the gold-silver ratio be- tween Rome and the Orient made it possible for Roman money men to work the system by demanding silver in payment from for- eign countries. Said Del Mar, "one reason was that the Roman government knew where to sell this silver at a usurer's profit"
[HMS, 86-87].
85. Government wanted: To the chorus of complaints that the secretary of the treasury acted illegally when he deposited federal funds in state banks rather than branches of the U. S. Bank, Benton said that the U. S. Bank was using the deposits to create its own currency, whereas, "The government wanted banks of deposit, not of circulation; and . . . the State banks [under the charter] are made just as much banks of deposit for the United States as the Bank of the United States is" [TYV, I, 457].
86. Ideogram: 14 [M3002], "right conduct" or "righteousness. "
87. black-out: A restatement of Pound's be- lief that munitions makers, usurers, and all their kind fostered war because it kept busi- ness and profits increasing, and that they could not get away with it if they did not keep their operations in the dark [GK, 30, 31,264].
88. Taney: Roger Brooke T. [cf. 57 above] from a Maryland slaveholding family, which eventually led to a stormy career as a SUM preme Court Justice. He was appointed to the court by Andrew Jackson as a reward for service in his cabinet in anumber of posts, first as attorney general and then, at a criti- cal moment in the struggle against the bank, as secretary of the treasury. Taney wrote most of Jackson's veto message on the reo chartering bill.
89. showed an increase: The U. S. Bank cre- . ated the panic of 1833-34 by curtailing all capital loans across the country. The Senate called upon Secretary Taney to report on
521
the government's finances, expecting the country was close to ruin. But the reverse was true. "Far from showing the financial decline. . . it showed an increase in every branch of the revenue! " [TYV , I, 462].
90. Benton: [88:80]. In defending Taney's report to the Senate, he reviewed details of the history of the "war with the bank" and listed such propaganda as contained in these lines.
91. "Hid the books . . . ": The U. S. Bank created panic in the West by deliberately removing money from its branches, where it was needed by merchants to pay farmers, to Philadelphia, where it was not needed. They thus created a depression in the Midwest, which was done deliberately to obtain an outcry for renewal of the charter: "This fact, said Mr. B. , would have been proved from the books of the banks, if they had been inspected. Failing in that, the proof was intelligibly found in the weekly returns"
[ibid. , 466].
92. "In specie . . . ": "If the gold bill passed, and raised gold sixteen to one, there would be more than that amount of gold in circula? tion in three months. The foreign coin bill, and the gold bill, would give the country many dollars in specie, without interest, for each paper dollar which the bank issues. . . . The Bank is now a nuisance" [ibid. , 468].
93. 16 to 1 . . . dominions: This fact has relevance because it led finally to a bill to make the U. S. ratio 16 to 1: "And, eventu- ally the bill was passed by a large majority"
[ibid. , 469].
94. Biddle: [88:92]. After the bank was not rechartered, it eventually was dissolved in 1841 as a result of wrongdoing. In the pro- cess, the bank itself sued Nicholas Biddle for "$1,018,000 paid out during his administra- tion, for which no vouchers can be found"
[ibid. , 472].
95. Levari facias: L, "Give reUef. " The Dic- tionary of English Law defines the phrase thus: "A writ of execution which corn? manded the sheriff to levy a judgement
Every city
. . . should have
. . .
78.
city
eyed system-should be free from the can? trol and regulation of a distant, possibly a rival city, in the means of carrying on its own trade" [ibid. , 450].
This statement and its context is of special interest as it contains the germs of one of the major theses of Social Credit [Douglas, Economic Democ- racy, 112 ff. ].
: "Every
an independent mon-
commercial
thus . . . without moving from my make money" [TYV, 450].
chair,
I
82. Drove out . . . : Del Mar believed Rome became subject to barbarian invasion be? cause (among other things) it gave up its eclectic, polytheistic religion, began making emperors gods, and increased the burden of taxation to build temples [Del Mar, Ancient
Britain, 55, 77-78, and passim].
? 522
89/595-596
89/596-597
523
debt on the lands and goods of the debtor by seizing and selling the goods, and seizing the rents and profits of the lands until the debt was satisfied. " Such a writ was issued against the estate of Biddle [ibid. , 472].
96. Louis . . . language: Since 1815 France had owed the U. S. money for its depreda? tions against American ships from 1806? 1812. France had not denied the debt but never carne up with the money. Because the Bank of the United States had bought the debt and sold it to its English agents, who were now demanding payment for the French default from the U. S. treasury, the Jackson administration was embarrassed. But King Louis Philippe wanted it paid and suggested the only way the House of Depu- ties would appropriate the money would be by President Jackson being very firm. Jack- son thus recommended that unless the next session of the House of Deputies appropri-
ated the money, Congress should pass a law "authorizing reprisals upon French pro- perty. " The French were offended and de- manded apologies. The king was amused. The president wouldn't apologize. The situa- tion worsened. The French press denounced Jackson as a tyrant. Ambassadors were re- called. Diplomatic relations were broken uff. "The people of both countries were in the temper that precedes and provokes hostili- ties. " Congress wouldn't vote money for Atlantic coast defence, "in spite of Jackson's warning that a French armed convoy was at that moment sailing toward the American continent, its intentions unknown. " The British offered to mediate. Both parties agreed. Mediatiun began in February 1836 and was concluded May 10, when Jackson announced that "the four installments under our treaty with France have been paid to the agent of the United States" [TYV, I, 472,
477-479, 554-556, 569-572, 588-602; Par- ton, Life ofJackson, LI, 563-579].
97. Public debt: The result of not renewing the bank's charter resulted quickly in the liquidation of the federal debt. Jackson an- nuunced the fact at the opening of the 1834 session of Congress [TYV, I, 479]. Pound
sees a rhyme between the act of levari facias against Biddle and Jackson's firm stand against France.
98. ho2 . . . li4: H02 [M2109], "Why? "; pi4-S [M5109], "must";yiieh4- S [M7694]' "tu say"; li4 [M3867], "profits. " "Why must [the king] use the word profit? " [87: 1171. The opening lines of The Works ofMencius concern a visit of Mencius to King Hwuy. The king said: "Venerable sir, since you have not counted it far to corne . . . a thousand li, may I presume you are likewise provided with counsels to profit my kingdom? " Said Mencius, "Why must Your Majesty use the word 'profi! '? What I am 'likewise' provided with, are counsels to benevolence and righ- teousness" [Legge, 430].
99. Webster: Daniel W. [34:72; cf. 59 above]. Unlike Mencius, Webster's vigorous support of Biddle and his bank shows that he had an enthusiastic attitude toward pro- fit.
100. Clay opposed . . . : Benton has a chapter entitled "Branch mints at New Or- leans, and in the Gold Regions of Georgia and North Carolina. " A bill to establish such mints was hotly debated. Benton was for the bill, but it "was earnestly and perserveringly opposed by Mr. Clay" [TYV, I, 550].
101. The Civil War . . . : Pound's supported by many, was that it was not slavery but economic repression of the South by northern bankers which was the major cause of the Civil War. Benton probes these conditions in a chapter entitled " . . . Southern Discontent: Its True Cause"
[TYV, 11,180-183].
102. Philadelphia . . . : Clay argued that the mint at Philadelphia was enough for the na- tion. Benton's forces argued that the Phila- delphia coinage did not reach all sections of the country in an equitable fashion [TYV, I, 551].
. . .
France had ten branch mints; Mexico had eight; the United States not one" [ibid. , 551].
104. Every citizen . . . : "Now the whole land is infested with a vile currency of small paper: and every citizen was more or less cheated" [ibid. , 552].
105. . . . counterfeit: Because they were backed by nothing [ibid. ].
and the Senate chamber converted into a theatre for . . . woe" [ibid. ,646].
Il2. "My fellow slave-holder": "[Ran- dolph] was one of the large slaveholders of Virginia, but disliked the institution . . . . In the House, when the term ~slaveholder' would be reproachfully used, he would as- sume it, and refer to a member, not in the parliamentary phrase of colleague, but in the complimentary title of 'my fellow- slaveholder. ''' He said to consignees of his tobacco who urged him to free his slaves: "Yes; you buy and set free to the amount of the money you have received from my fa- ther and his estate for these slaves, and I will set free an equal number" [ibid. , 474-475].
113. (masnatosque liberavit): ML, "and he freed [his] household slaves" [6:35; 90:19].
114. Mr Bishop: Prob. either a Pisan prisoner or a fellow inmate at St. Elizabeths.
103. France
Philadelphia from the South and West, but not returned back again to those regions. Local mints alone could supply them.
B.
G. , 1762-
: "Money was
attracted to
view,
106. French currency . . .
French currency to be the best in the world . . . there was a gold and silver circula- tion of upwards of five hundred millions of dollars; a currency which had lately stood two revolutions and one conquest, without the least fluctuation in its quantity or value" [ibid. , 552-553].
. . .
paid for its use, and no danger incurred of its becoming useless" [ibid. , 573-574].
107. 20 millions
was the United States and not France that the "20 millions entered. " That happened because "of the revival of the gold cur- rency": "Near twenty millions of dollars had entered the country . . . for which, different from a bank paper currency, no interest was
108. Land not safe . . . : A recurrent
The excessive "issue" by banks of paper not founded on anything made all business ven- tures unsafe [TYV, I, 550].
109. Sovreignty . . . : Rhyme with gold is of the Pontifex [cf. 79 above] .
IlO. "All it. . . nothing": [88:78].
111. 600 banks . . . sorrow: Benton, in denouncing a Senate resolution censuring Jackson for his order to remove public de- posits from the bank, said: "It was a plot against the government, and against the pro- perty of the country. The government was to be upset, and property revolutionized. Six hundred banks were to be broken-the gen- eral currency ruined-myriads bankrupted- all business stopped-all property sunk in value-all confidence destroyed! . . . These crimes . . . were to be accomplished by . . . a whole system of . . . subsidiary crime! . . .
117. Sigismundo: [8:5]. Just asSigismundo was villified and condemned by powerful interests (popes and rivals), so AJ was con- demned by powerful bankers and politicians. Said Benton in a speech: "President Jackson has done more for the human race than the whole tribe of politicians put together; and shall he remain stigmatized and con- demned? " [ibid. , 646-648].
118. Commander Rogers: The commodore of the frigate President, who in the War of 1812 cruised against the British merchant fleet. In giving chase to a British frigate, Rogers knew he was on the right trail of a "fleet. . .
[ibid. , 443].
68. 6 suspensions: Benton showed Hamil- ton's plan was the eventual elimination of foreign coins, which would be replaced by an American currency. Since that didn't hap- pen, and the law to exclude foreign coins didn't work, Congress suspended it for three years. Six further 3-year suspensions became necessary and they didn't end until 1819
[88:75].
69. au TIS: H, "No one" [74: 17]. Used here as an intensive.
70. Nothing . . . West: The prohibition of foreign coins had a devastating effect upon the West: "for the coinage of trade and exchanges, to carry money from the Atlantic States to the West" [TYV, I, 446].
71. Brooks: B. Adams, 1848-1927, son the Charles Francis A. and brother of Henry Adams, 1838-1918. Both were American his- torians. Pound said of B. Adams: "His cyclic version of the West shows us a consecutive struggle against four great rackets, namely the exploitation of the fear of the unknown (black magic, etc. ), the exploitation of vio- lence, the exploitation or the monopolisa-
can slave-trade? "
lQA,519].
[Nevins,
Diary o f
62. Roman law: Pound interpolation con- cerning the two-third's majority required to
? 520
tion of cultivable land, and the exploitation
of money" [SF, 307] ,
72. grandfather: John Quincy Adams
[34:passim].
73. old John: President John Adams [31:15]. Said Pound, "The tragedy of the U. S. A. over 160 years is the decline of Adarnses. More and more we cd. , if we ex- amined events, see that John Adams had the
corrective for Jefferson" [GK,254].
74. Under . . . four: The effect of the law
excluding foreign coinage even resulted in the export of U. S. -minted coins, which made the law "the curse and the nuisance of the country. . . . The custom? house returns showed the large exportation of domestic coins. . . . In the year 1832, it amounted to $2,058,474" [TYV, I, 447].
75. . . . the highest: Benton said that regu- lating the currency "was one of the highest and most delicate acts of sovereign power"
[ibid. , 449].
76. tho charter: The bank helped create the
coinage vacuum so it could float its own paper money: "Although forbid by her char- ter to deal in coin, she has employed her branches to gather $40,040,000 of coin from the states; a large part of which she admits that she has sold and transported to Europe" [ibid. , 448].
77. POWER . . . : The power to coin and regulate the currency is a constitutional question: "this power is vested in the federal government not in one department of it, but in the joint action of the three departments"
[ibid. , 449].
89/594 79. Gold . . . issue: In Del Mar's History of
Monetary Systems, we read, "The right to coin money has always been and still re- mains the surest mark and announcement of sovereignty" [HMS, 66]. Del Mar [96: 119] earlier said: "N0 language is more positive than that of Mommsen . . . in laying down the following institute: that Rome never per- mitted her vassals to strike gold. " He devel- ops in this chapter the use of other metals [ibid. , 34-35]. In the Bridson interviews Pound reiterated one of his long-held theses: "Gold was under the Pontifex or the Em- pire; silver was a wangle farmed out to sena- tors . . . an d the bronze, the small coinage, was under certain privileged municipalities. That is to say, enough local control to pre- vent the local economic order being ruined from the center [Bridson, "An Interview," 179].
80. Benton's . . . : These lines refer to the power to issue. The answer to the question "when? " was, according to Benton, when the national government used its sovereignty and when there was national, regulated met? al currency in circulation. "Why? " Because if the national government issued its own money it would not have to pay interest, as it did on the bank's paper money, and no public debt would build up and be owed to the bank [88:137, 139; and 26 above].
8! . Voltaire: [65:108]. He said: "I have a friend . . . who is a director in the Bank of France, who writes to me when they are going to make money plenty, and make stocks rise, and then I give orders to my broker to sell; and he writes to me when they are going to make money scarce . . . and then I write to my broker to buy; and
89/594-595
83. Del Mar: Alexander D. M. [96: 119].
84. "ratios . . . Orient. ": After Julius Caesar conquered Egypt (48 B. C. ), he found that the difference in the gold-silver ratio be- tween Rome and the Orient made it possible for Roman money men to work the system by demanding silver in payment from for- eign countries. Said Del Mar, "one reason was that the Roman government knew where to sell this silver at a usurer's profit"
[HMS, 86-87].
85. Government wanted: To the chorus of complaints that the secretary of the treasury acted illegally when he deposited federal funds in state banks rather than branches of the U. S. Bank, Benton said that the U. S. Bank was using the deposits to create its own currency, whereas, "The government wanted banks of deposit, not of circulation; and . . . the State banks [under the charter] are made just as much banks of deposit for the United States as the Bank of the United States is" [TYV, I, 457].
86. Ideogram: 14 [M3002], "right conduct" or "righteousness. "
87. black-out: A restatement of Pound's be- lief that munitions makers, usurers, and all their kind fostered war because it kept busi- ness and profits increasing, and that they could not get away with it if they did not keep their operations in the dark [GK, 30, 31,264].
88. Taney: Roger Brooke T. [cf. 57 above] from a Maryland slaveholding family, which eventually led to a stormy career as a SUM preme Court Justice. He was appointed to the court by Andrew Jackson as a reward for service in his cabinet in anumber of posts, first as attorney general and then, at a criti- cal moment in the struggle against the bank, as secretary of the treasury. Taney wrote most of Jackson's veto message on the reo chartering bill.
89. showed an increase: The U. S. Bank cre- . ated the panic of 1833-34 by curtailing all capital loans across the country. The Senate called upon Secretary Taney to report on
521
the government's finances, expecting the country was close to ruin. But the reverse was true. "Far from showing the financial decline. . . it showed an increase in every branch of the revenue! " [TYV , I, 462].
90. Benton: [88:80]. In defending Taney's report to the Senate, he reviewed details of the history of the "war with the bank" and listed such propaganda as contained in these lines.
91. "Hid the books . . . ": The U. S. Bank created panic in the West by deliberately removing money from its branches, where it was needed by merchants to pay farmers, to Philadelphia, where it was not needed. They thus created a depression in the Midwest, which was done deliberately to obtain an outcry for renewal of the charter: "This fact, said Mr. B. , would have been proved from the books of the banks, if they had been inspected. Failing in that, the proof was intelligibly found in the weekly returns"
[ibid. , 466].
92. "In specie . . . ": "If the gold bill passed, and raised gold sixteen to one, there would be more than that amount of gold in circula? tion in three months. The foreign coin bill, and the gold bill, would give the country many dollars in specie, without interest, for each paper dollar which the bank issues. . . . The Bank is now a nuisance" [ibid. , 468].
93. 16 to 1 . . . dominions: This fact has relevance because it led finally to a bill to make the U. S. ratio 16 to 1: "And, eventu- ally the bill was passed by a large majority"
[ibid. , 469].
94. Biddle: [88:92]. After the bank was not rechartered, it eventually was dissolved in 1841 as a result of wrongdoing. In the pro- cess, the bank itself sued Nicholas Biddle for "$1,018,000 paid out during his administra- tion, for which no vouchers can be found"
[ibid. , 472].
95. Levari facias: L, "Give reUef. " The Dic- tionary of English Law defines the phrase thus: "A writ of execution which corn? manded the sheriff to levy a judgement
Every city
. . . should have
. . .
78.
city
eyed system-should be free from the can? trol and regulation of a distant, possibly a rival city, in the means of carrying on its own trade" [ibid. , 450].
This statement and its context is of special interest as it contains the germs of one of the major theses of Social Credit [Douglas, Economic Democ- racy, 112 ff. ].
: "Every
an independent mon-
commercial
thus . . . without moving from my make money" [TYV, 450].
chair,
I
82. Drove out . . . : Del Mar believed Rome became subject to barbarian invasion be? cause (among other things) it gave up its eclectic, polytheistic religion, began making emperors gods, and increased the burden of taxation to build temples [Del Mar, Ancient
Britain, 55, 77-78, and passim].
? 522
89/595-596
89/596-597
523
debt on the lands and goods of the debtor by seizing and selling the goods, and seizing the rents and profits of the lands until the debt was satisfied. " Such a writ was issued against the estate of Biddle [ibid. , 472].
96. Louis . . . language: Since 1815 France had owed the U. S. money for its depreda? tions against American ships from 1806? 1812. France had not denied the debt but never carne up with the money. Because the Bank of the United States had bought the debt and sold it to its English agents, who were now demanding payment for the French default from the U. S. treasury, the Jackson administration was embarrassed. But King Louis Philippe wanted it paid and suggested the only way the House of Depu- ties would appropriate the money would be by President Jackson being very firm. Jack- son thus recommended that unless the next session of the House of Deputies appropri-
ated the money, Congress should pass a law "authorizing reprisals upon French pro- perty. " The French were offended and de- manded apologies. The king was amused. The president wouldn't apologize. The situa- tion worsened. The French press denounced Jackson as a tyrant. Ambassadors were re- called. Diplomatic relations were broken uff. "The people of both countries were in the temper that precedes and provokes hostili- ties. " Congress wouldn't vote money for Atlantic coast defence, "in spite of Jackson's warning that a French armed convoy was at that moment sailing toward the American continent, its intentions unknown. " The British offered to mediate. Both parties agreed. Mediatiun began in February 1836 and was concluded May 10, when Jackson announced that "the four installments under our treaty with France have been paid to the agent of the United States" [TYV, I, 472,
477-479, 554-556, 569-572, 588-602; Par- ton, Life ofJackson, LI, 563-579].
97. Public debt: The result of not renewing the bank's charter resulted quickly in the liquidation of the federal debt. Jackson an- nuunced the fact at the opening of the 1834 session of Congress [TYV, I, 479]. Pound
sees a rhyme between the act of levari facias against Biddle and Jackson's firm stand against France.
98. ho2 . . . li4: H02 [M2109], "Why? "; pi4-S [M5109], "must";yiieh4- S [M7694]' "tu say"; li4 [M3867], "profits. " "Why must [the king] use the word profit? " [87: 1171. The opening lines of The Works ofMencius concern a visit of Mencius to King Hwuy. The king said: "Venerable sir, since you have not counted it far to corne . . . a thousand li, may I presume you are likewise provided with counsels to profit my kingdom? " Said Mencius, "Why must Your Majesty use the word 'profi! '? What I am 'likewise' provided with, are counsels to benevolence and righ- teousness" [Legge, 430].
99. Webster: Daniel W. [34:72; cf. 59 above]. Unlike Mencius, Webster's vigorous support of Biddle and his bank shows that he had an enthusiastic attitude toward pro- fit.
100. Clay opposed . . . : Benton has a chapter entitled "Branch mints at New Or- leans, and in the Gold Regions of Georgia and North Carolina. " A bill to establish such mints was hotly debated. Benton was for the bill, but it "was earnestly and perserveringly opposed by Mr. Clay" [TYV, I, 550].
101. The Civil War . . . : Pound's supported by many, was that it was not slavery but economic repression of the South by northern bankers which was the major cause of the Civil War. Benton probes these conditions in a chapter entitled " . . . Southern Discontent: Its True Cause"
[TYV, 11,180-183].
102. Philadelphia . . . : Clay argued that the mint at Philadelphia was enough for the na- tion. Benton's forces argued that the Phila- delphia coinage did not reach all sections of the country in an equitable fashion [TYV, I, 551].
. . .
France had ten branch mints; Mexico had eight; the United States not one" [ibid. , 551].
104. Every citizen . . . : "Now the whole land is infested with a vile currency of small paper: and every citizen was more or less cheated" [ibid. , 552].
105. . . . counterfeit: Because they were backed by nothing [ibid. ].
and the Senate chamber converted into a theatre for . . . woe" [ibid. ,646].
Il2. "My fellow slave-holder": "[Ran- dolph] was one of the large slaveholders of Virginia, but disliked the institution . . . . In the House, when the term ~slaveholder' would be reproachfully used, he would as- sume it, and refer to a member, not in the parliamentary phrase of colleague, but in the complimentary title of 'my fellow- slaveholder. ''' He said to consignees of his tobacco who urged him to free his slaves: "Yes; you buy and set free to the amount of the money you have received from my fa- ther and his estate for these slaves, and I will set free an equal number" [ibid. , 474-475].
113. (masnatosque liberavit): ML, "and he freed [his] household slaves" [6:35; 90:19].
114. Mr Bishop: Prob. either a Pisan prisoner or a fellow inmate at St. Elizabeths.
103. France
Philadelphia from the South and West, but not returned back again to those regions. Local mints alone could supply them.
B.
G. , 1762-
: "Money was
attracted to
view,
106. French currency . . .
French currency to be the best in the world . . . there was a gold and silver circula- tion of upwards of five hundred millions of dollars; a currency which had lately stood two revolutions and one conquest, without the least fluctuation in its quantity or value" [ibid. , 552-553].
. . .
paid for its use, and no danger incurred of its becoming useless" [ibid. , 573-574].
107. 20 millions
was the United States and not France that the "20 millions entered. " That happened because "of the revival of the gold cur- rency": "Near twenty millions of dollars had entered the country . . . for which, different from a bank paper currency, no interest was
108. Land not safe . . . : A recurrent
The excessive "issue" by banks of paper not founded on anything made all business ven- tures unsafe [TYV, I, 550].
109. Sovreignty . . . : Rhyme with gold is of the Pontifex [cf. 79 above] .
IlO. "All it. . . nothing": [88:78].
111. 600 banks . . . sorrow: Benton, in denouncing a Senate resolution censuring Jackson for his order to remove public de- posits from the bank, said: "It was a plot against the government, and against the pro- perty of the country. The government was to be upset, and property revolutionized. Six hundred banks were to be broken-the gen- eral currency ruined-myriads bankrupted- all business stopped-all property sunk in value-all confidence destroyed! . . . These crimes . . . were to be accomplished by . . . a whole system of . . . subsidiary crime! . . .
117. Sigismundo: [8:5]. Just asSigismundo was villified and condemned by powerful interests (popes and rivals), so AJ was con- demned by powerful bankers and politicians. Said Benton in a speech: "President Jackson has done more for the human race than the whole tribe of politicians put together; and shall he remain stigmatized and con- demned? " [ibid. , 646-648].
118. Commander Rogers: The commodore of the frigate President, who in the War of 1812 cruised against the British merchant fleet. In giving chase to a British frigate, Rogers knew he was on the right trail of a "fleet. . .
