power. It was
declared dangerous to the liberties of the country.

At the expiration of its charter, then approaching, it was refused a
renewal. So intimately was it connected with every interest in the
country, that its passing out of existence threatened universal
bankruptcy. Its branches located at every important commercial point,
its credit was universally employed. It furnished exchange at almost a
nominal rate upon every commercial city of the world, and permeated
every transaction, giving health and vigor as the circulating fluid
does the animal system.

Suddenly to arrest and destroy this, was universal ruin. But to serve
the behest of party in a double form, it was crushed. But a substitute
was proposed by the party interested, and upon whom the responsibility
rested--the creation of State banks without limit, which were
recommended to discount liberally to the people, and supply the wants
created by the withdrawal of the capital and accommodations of the
national bank. This recommendation was literally and instantly obeyed.
In every State where the dominant party held control--and they did so
throughout the South and West--the legislatures made haste to create,
without limit, State banks, with power to flood the country with
irresponsible bank paper. Each assumed that it must supply not only its
portion, but the entire amount of the banking capital withdrawn, and
double or treble the circulation. The natural consequence was immense
inflation of the currency, or circulating medium, and the rapid
appreciation of every species of property in price. Everybody and every
interest flourished most prosperously--gaunt poverty had fled the land,
and bloated abundance laughed in every home. Suddenly men sprang into
importance who a little while before were humble artizans or employed
in the meanest capacities. A new El Dorado had been discovered;
fortunes were made in a day, without enterprise or work; and unexampled
prosperity seemed to cover the land as with a golden canopy--forests
were swept away in a week; labor came in crowds to the South to produce
cotton; and where yesterday the wilderness darkened over the land with
her wild forests, to-day the cotton plantation whitened the
earth--production was quadrupled--labor doubled in value, land rose to
fearful prices, the wildest extravagance obtained; costly furniture,
expensive equipages, ostentatious display--all were contributing to
hasten the catastrophe. The wi