of the Western States resorted to the remedies which were broached
during hard times under the Confederation. Kentucky became notorious by
reason of its laws in behalf of the debtor class. In every Western State
there was a disposition to seek shelter from the operation of federal
law behind the aegis of State rights. The people of these newer
communities were slow to accept the force of precedent in cases decided
by the federal courts. Andrew Jackson voiced this feeling when he became
President. "Mere precedent," said he, "is a dangerous source of
authority, and should not be regarded as deciding questions of
constitutional power, except where the acquiescence of the people and
the States can be considered as well settled."

That there was much real suffering during this panic admits of no doubt.
Niles estimated that not less than twenty thousand persons were seeking
employment in Philadelphia in the summer of 1819, and quite as many
wandering in the streets of New York looking for work. In both cities
soup-houses were established by private charitable societies to relieve
distress in the following winter. In the city of New York, during the
year 1816, over nineteen hundred unfortunates were imprisoned for debt;
and of these, over seven hundred owed less than twenty-five dollars.

But it was not merely the city dweller who felt the pinch of poverty.
Thousands of Western settlers who had purchased land under the Act of
1800, which permitted deferred payments, found themselves insolvent.
More than $21,000,000, one fifth of the national debt, remained unpaid
in the year 1820. To the importunities of these debtors Congress had
yielded from time to time, but it was not until 1821 that it passed the
first general relief act. Those who had not completed their payments
within the prescribed five years were then permitted to give up the land
which they had not paid for, and to apply the payments already made to
the full purchase of the lands which they retained. Arrears of interest
were remitted.

In 1820, Congress passed an act which wrought a far-reaching change in
the disposal of the public domain. The credit system was abolished
outright. After July 1, 1820, land was to be sold for cash at a minimum
price of a dollar and a quarter an acre, and in eighty-acre tracts. A
payment of one hundred dollars, then, would make a settler the owner of
eighty acres in his own right. The prospect of actual ownership of a
small tract mad