42 BUTLER FINANCIERING UP AT SANDY HILL. On the 19th of November he complains, that no poor wight had ever received "more of public censure and abuse" than himself. is very low," and my character is so depreciated at Albany, according to report, "The credit of the paper that but few of my old acquaintances would acknowledge or receive me." (p. 162.) How could it be otherwise? Had he not labored unweariedly to cheat the community, or to allow his confederates to do so? If there was double the value of the bills afloat in secure, solvent debts, who stole these obligations, so that the bills went down to 50 and 30 cents? ample means, who plundered it of those means? If the bank had terested financier, Butler, advised all who valued his word, in June and July, If the politic, pious, disinto take the bills at par, and assured them on his homor, that they would be paid, and that the bank was good and would stand, what explanation did he give when all but a few favorites found themselves cheated and plundered? His letters, Nos. 34, 35, 50, and still more especially No. 31, are a queer mixture of religion, law, and banking. As his language was in keeping with this pious exterior, many must have been deceived.* the U. S. Bank, while "the party" were creating Washington and Warren banks by the hundred, humbly to imitate his too successful example. In Van Buren's address to the Democratic State Convention of Indiana, he tells the Hoosiers that "the manufacture of paper money has been attempted in every form; it has been tried by individuals, been transferred to corporations by the States, then to corporations by Congress, engaged in by the States themselves, and has signally failed in all. It has in general proved not the handmaid of honest industry and well regulated enterprise, but the pampered menial of speculation, idleness, and fraud. It has corrupted men of the highest standing; almost destroyed the confidence of mankind in each other; and darkened our criminal calendar with names that might otherwise have conferred honor and benefit on the country. There is strong ground for believing that such a system must have some innate, incurable defect, of which no legislation can divest it, and against which no human wisdom can guard, or human integrity sustain itself." Could he not have gone farther, and added, that he and his friends Butler, Marcy, Throop, &c., had done more in the way of this manufacture, corruption, and destruction of confidence, than any other body of politicians in the Union? On the 7th of July, Butler wrote Hoyt that he had paid, since the run commenced, over $9,000-say $325 per day-that he had more cash now than at first, "but shall now hold up" ought not the public to wait a while? We have crowed full enough." Again, on the 10th, "I will rather suffer the public to fret a little than hazard the safety of the institution by paying out too fast." Schuyler owed a note-Butler would not take W. and W. bills in payment-not he. "He will be sued," said Butler (page 161); and when paying his debis he selected bills of an indifferent reputation (page 154), "he had no money but what was toc good for them." On July 14, Butler was "satisfying all fair and proper calls," and abusing Clinton as being "raving mad, beside being a fool.' slow way." Other banks had got his bank notes, and were about to circulate them in quanAugust 24, he was "paying daily, in a tities, when Hoyt was set on with a series of chancery injunctions, but Chancellor Kent thwarted him, and refused to enjoin the banks not to circulate. him that the W. and W. could no longer afford to pay his salary, and B. F. Butler rejoined In February, 1820, Barker advised his ancient colleague in the law, Van Buren; being, "with the assistance of Providence, fully resolved never again to abandon his profession." on the 19th the firm of Van Buren & Butler was ready to do "anybody's dirty work," with He left the bank June 15, 1820, and Lorenzo Hoyt for a student, and Jesse, his brother, as their Wall street correspondent. In a very few years after, Butler was Attorney-General of the Republic, and his partner filled the chair of Washington. * In a card issued through the Evening Post, February, 1825, Barker said that $200,000 of its stock had been received from the debtors of the bank. Why was this done, when it was well known that the stock was worthless? Who besides Barker had $200,000 to pay in? Was it in this way that the securities for double its bills in circulation went? I noticed the Washington and Warren Bank, in a publication issued in 1843, on which "As to the Bank of Washington and Warren, you, in effect, charge Mr. Van Buren, Mr. Butler, and my- BARKER AND THE WASHINGTON AND WARREN BANK. 43 CHAPTER XIII. Should JUSTICE call to battle, the applauding shout we'd raise; Ode to 4th of July, 1812, by William Cullen Bryant. Van Buren, Clinton, Spencer, Madison, and the War of 1812. The Caucus.Bleecker and Hamilton.-Van Buren opposed to War.-He stands foremost in urging Clinton to take the field against Madison.-Injures Clinton and then deserts him.-Madison triumphs.—Van Buren joins the victors and bears off the spoils. The true Policy of this Union.-Great Reformation in the United Kingdom since 1819.-Vast increase of Popular Influence and Liberal Measures. -Horace Walpole.-Ambrose Spencer on Van Buren's crooked course in 1812. Clinton manly, able, honest.-Duane and Spencer gave him good counsel. VAN BUREN's history exhibits an absolute disregard to principle, in everything that has relation to the choice of candidates for President and Vice President of the United States, or to the mode of their election. On the 22d of incorporation, I was not a party to it, and knew nothing about the progress of the bill through the Legislature, never heard of it, further than what I read in the newspapers, and did not become interested therein till long after its incorporation, nor did Mr. Butler accept a situation in it until a year or more after I became interested. The bank was unfortunate, yet its deposits and circulation were paid in full. Have other failing banks done this? There was not, to my knowledge or belief, any interference on the part of Mr. Van Buren or Mr. Butler with the Legislature, or any member, in procuring the act incorporating that bank. Mr. Van Buren may have been a member. How he voted I never knew-presume in the negative, as he, as well as Mr. Butler and myseif, usually opposed the increase of those monied aristocracies, tho-e privileged orders. My character for Democracy is not to be questioned at this late day. No man sees or hears the name of Jacob Barker, who does not instantly associate therewith Democracy." The facts published in this volume are the best reply to such erroneous statements as Barker tried to palm upon the public. Van Buren's conduct in getting the charter I have stated from the Senate Journal; and as to the payments to the bill-holders, Butler's letters will show that they had a very poor chance of getting them. Bills that are paid are not quoted at 25 to 50 cents in the prices current; but, doubtless, when the securities were so ample, much knavery was practised, which will only see the light when the recording angel shall be called on to endorse Butler's piety, or refuse a certificate. Butler was very saucy to the brokers-they could get scarcely any payments from himHoyt published his letter in the Albany papers, calling them "leeches upon the body politic"and the bankers were not much more fortunate. By way of retaliation (see Barker's pamphlet), a New York broker hawked about the streets a proposal to contract to deliver Butler's W. and W. notes at 80 cents to the dollar, within six months. Afterwards, the brokers offered to deliver them at 50 cents. In a few months they came down to 35 cents, and Barker's Exchange Bank bills fell to 10 cents. Butler's full-length picture, and an elaborate memoir, appeared in his friend O'Sullivan's Democratic Review for January, 1839, in which the public are assured that "before he (Butler) left the bank, by great exertion and care, its credit was restored, and specie payments resumed." Far be it from me to call this a lie, but it would puzzle Butler himself to find a more appropriate description. In June, 1821, after the W. and W. Bank notes were bought in at 50 to 75 per cent. discount; then-but not till then-did this fraudulent concern recommence again "cash payments," which Mr. Barker or his instruments kept up for some years. The Exchange Bank was a dead failure, of which its owner got rid by taking the benefit of the State insolvent law. In August, 1819, Mr. Jacob Barker issued a pamphlet, a bundle of which he sent to Butler, at San ly Hill, for general circulation. One of these is now before me. It states that Barker began his Exchange Bank, in New York, with a capital of $250,000; that it flourished till May, 1819-that the average circulation of its notes was over half a million of dollars-that in that month he ceased to pay out Exchange no es, substituting Washington and Warren (which occasioned the run on Butler, at Sandy Hill)-that from August, 1818, to May, 1319, he had redeemed, at par, $582,115 of W. and W. bills, and that he considered the W. and W Bank, “FROM THE KNOWLEDGE HE HAD OF ITS CONCERNS, AS GOOD AS 44 VAN BUREN And the war of 1812. May, 1812, James Madison was nominated by the members of Congress of the democratic party-the nomination had Jefferson's approbation. On the 29th of that month, and within seven days of the caucus choice of Madison, all the republicans in the Legislature of N. Y. except four, met at Albany, 95 members present-87 voted to nominate a candidate, in opposition to Madison, and the Washington caucus, and De Witt Clinton was unanimously nominated. Gen. James W. Wilkin presided at this State caucus, and Van Buren approved and supported its choice. He had been for a caucus of Congressmen in 180S-was against it in 1812-for it again in 1816, when Monroe was nominated-and its leader in 1824 in favor of Crawford. In 1828 he denounced it as unconstitutional, and in 1832 supported the packed system of Baltimore conventions, in which the people have little influence, and the leaders are everything. In 1824 he was for putting down public opinion when he thought it would go against his nominee, Crawford-and he did prevent the people from electing electors of president. In 1828 he had obtained quite a new view, and spoke in favor of district elections, and since then the general ticket system has got his approbation. He hated and despised the poor foreigner in 1821 and 1824. It got to be fashionable to speak respectfully of Irishmen when General Jackson took the helm-and who had sooner learnt to admire themselves and their country in 1829, more than the flatterer of power, Van Buren? Crawford was a leading member of the caucus which nominated Madison in 1812, and R. M. Johnson was its secretary. Van Buren was then politically opposed to him in almost every sense, banking and currency included. Twelve years after [1824] he seems to have almost adored him. When Van Buren became President, he hastened to appoint Harmanus Bleecker, a lawyer of Albany, and former member of Congress, one of the most thorough-going opponents of Madison and the war, to be Minister to Holland When he joined Jackson's administration, he sent James A. Hamilton, Hoyt's correspondent, (pages 205 and 209,) who was so ready to endorse Swartwout's doctrine, that, although all the candidates were avowed and acknowledged republicans, yet the spoils principle must be adhered to, and office-holders turned out if they had supported any other candidate than the successful one. On this principle, Jonathan Thompson, the chairman or secretary of Old Tammany in 1812, when that society was foremost in the war ranks, had to vacate the collectorship of New York, to make room for Samuel Swartwout, Burr's old agent in the Mexican invasion, or dismemberment of the Union; James A. ANY OTHER, IF NOT THE BEST IN AMERICA." "Because I know the paper to be good," said Barker, "I recommend to every man whose good opinion I wish to preserve, to take the notes of the Washington and Warren Bank, and also the notes of the Exchange Bank, for any property he wishes to sell. "The notes of the W. and W., payable in N. Y., will, from this date, be punctually redeemed at this (Exchange) Bank; and the others will continue to be redeemed at the Bank at Sandy Hill." "I confidently calculate that no man will approach the polls at the next spring election with a bill [of the Exchange Bank] in his pocket which he cannot then convert into money, at par, if he chooses to do so." Time showed that all this was a deception, a fraud of the most reprehensible character, but it did not diminish the close intimacy then subsisting between Hoyt, Butler, Barker, and Van Buren. Butler, Barker, and Van Buren, in those days, were all National Bank men. Barker, in his pamphlet, page 18, expresses the opinion, "that, some day or other, the whole banking business of the country will be done by a national bank and private bankers; the former will redeem its paper with specie, and the latter with the notes of the national bank. If the present Bank of the U. S. should be conducted with ability and prudence, it will be a very profitable as well as useful establishment." If a specie currency cannot, or will not be resorted to, and if the promises to pay of the nation are not to be used as the circulating medium, Barker's idea is certainly infinitely preferable to 900 paper-issuing factories, beyond all other control than that of a bankrupt law, and many of them beyond even that.. VAN BUREN, CLINTON, AND THE ELECTION OF 1812. 45 Hamilton took, for a time, the seat of Henry Clay at the head of the department of State, which he soon exchanged for the most lucrative office in the gift of the Government, north of the Delaware, that of U. S. District Attorney at New York. He gave way in 1834 to Price, a bird of the same feather; and B. F. Butler succeeded on the flight of Price. On the 8th of July, 1812, some prominent individuals belonging to the peace party in Hudson, Van Buren's residence, published an address, recommending a meeting of the party for the purpose of denouncing James Madison and the war. Among other opponents of the war, this address was signed by James A. Hamilton, the warm personal friend of Van Buren. The Hudson meeting convened and resolved, That the war is impolitic, unnecessary, and disastrous, and that to employ the militia in an offensive war is unconstitutional.' I do not blame Van Buren; because, being of opinion that nothing was to be gained by war, in 1812, he supported Clinton, supposing that he would pursue such measures as would earlier ensure a lasting peace; but I blame him and his biographers for endeavoring to pursuade the public now, that he was a Jeffersonian Democrat in 1812, and friendly to the declaration of war, like Clay, Duane, Calhoun, Grundy, and the other leading supporters of the administration of that day. Van Buren, in a letter to E. M. Chamberlain and others, Goshen, Indiana, dated Oct. 3, 1840, thus speaks of De Witt Clinton, and 1812 : "He had, for many years previous, and down to that period, been the leader of the Democratic party, in New York. He was the private secretary of his uncle, George Clinton-was a member of the Legislature in 1797 and 1800, and sustained the Democracy in the reign of terror' against the 'Black Cockade' party. He was chosen U. S. Senator in 1801 by the former, occupied by their choice, various public stations in New York; was in the State Senate for several years before the war; elected Lieutenant Governor by them in 1811, which office he still held in 1812; acted with his party to that period, in support of the measures of the General and State administrations, under Madison and Tompkins; was to that period abused with unsparing bitterness by the Federalists, and in return, he applied to them his well remembered description' of a party who would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.'" Van Buren adds, that he supported Clinton in November, 1812, in preference to Madison, as being an advocate of war measures;—and that, " At the ensuing session of the Legislature, which commenced in January, 1813, the political relations previously existing between Mr. Clinton and myself were dissolved, and never again resumed." There were 16 States in 1812. New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, went for Clinton -89 votes. Madison got 104. Other 18 votes would have elected Clinton. Van Buren doubtless considered that that great man had injured himself deeply with the people, for he left him next session, and went over to the party he had long opposed, became useful to them in the Senate, and professed to be a very sincere convert to the principles and measures of Messrs. Madison, Calhoun, Clay, Grundy, Root, Spencer, Duane, Jackson, Rutgers, and the other prominent advocates of armed resistance to European oppression and misrule. His partner and parasite, Butler, in a letter to Hugh A. Garland, March, 1835, says that "the republicans of the legislature of 1811-12, who brought forward Mr. Clinton," had supported Jefferson and Madison "in all the great questions of public policy connected with our foreign relations"-and that Van Buren was an open and decided advocate of all the strong measures proposed against Great Britain during the session of Congress of 1811-12, the war included." Be 46 FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND. HER RECENT REFORMS. fore the election of 1840, Blair told us, in the Globe, the printing presses for which were bought and paid for by Van Buren's speculating friends in New York, (see Daniel Jackson's letter,) that Van Buren wrote the Senate's reply to Tompkins' Message of 1814. It says that "an administration selected for its wisdom and its virtues will, in our opinion, prosecute the war till our multiplied wrongs are avenged, and our rights secured." If Van Buren, in 1811-12, was a decided advocate of strong measures and of war, why did he denounce the caucus system of which he was so fond in 1808 and 1824, and which Butler revered when he supposed Andrew Jackson was to be put down by it? Why did he denounce a caucus in 1812, join those who sought to put down this wise and virtuous administration, whose foreign policy Butler tells us he had approved of, and vote with the Hartford Convention men, and the federal States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, for Clinton? No one will argue that Massachusetts and Connecticut supported Clinton as the war candidate. If he was such, where is the proof of it? That W. C. Bryant, Dr. Channing, Daniel Webster, and hundreds of emi It is understood to have been the policy of France before the capitulation of Quebec, to unite with the Indians, and surround the English settlements in North America, by a rear communication of military forts, judiciously placed between her colony of Louisiana and the dwellers on the banks of the St. Lawrence. Some such scheme is now imputed to Britain with a view to coerce the United States-and Bonnefoux, in a well written pamphlet, evidently credits it. He says that the Ashburton treaty, which was certainly a very hard bargain to these States, enables England to assume a truly formidable attitude on the northern and northwestern frontiers of the Union-to stir up the hostile Indian tribes, chiefly west of the Mississippi-and, that if Texas was not annexed, England would control the Gulf of Mexico, scatter her emissaries among the Indians all the way up to Michigan, and encircle this republic with enemies, savage and civilized, who would rise to our injury at her bidding. If Republican America remain true to her original design-if liberty, based on intelligence, justice, and industry well rewarded, continue to be substantially enjoyed by her people, no efforts of England, or of England and France combined, can permanently retard her progress -no railroads, northern colonies, western Indians, or hireling mercenaries, would avail much for conquest. France is a compact country, surrounded by absolute monarchies, and by Holland, England, and Switzerland-but was she not stronger against combined Europe, when battling for liberty under the flag of free institutions, and confined within her natural limits, than when her frontiers included Italy, Holland, and a great part of Germany and Spain, under the despotism of Napoleon? In her struggles for good government, the generous and the just, the bold and the brave, everywhere asked Heaven to bless her-in her wars for annexation or conquest she became weak, and when I first travelled over her "vine-covered fields and gay valleys," she was a captive, her strongholds garrisoned by Englishmen, Rus sians, Prussians, and Austrians, and the imbecile Bourbons and old noblesse bore rule as the vicegerents of Metternich, Alexander, and the baron Castlereagh. In my opinion, respectfully offered, as revised and corrected by what I have seen here, the Union runs more risk through the exertions of the party in power to extend and perpetuate slavery; inflict on us the evils of an unsound currency; keep millions of the people degraded and ignorant; stir up such scenes as were witnessed in Philadelphia in 1844, through nativeism and religious hatreds; borrow Jarge sums from foreign nations, spend the money in a profligate manner under the sanction of sovereign States, and then virtually repudiate the debts; and omit to enforce equal laws and a pure administration of justice. When we see great nation like Britain, struggling under the heaviest load of public debt that ever was borne by any people, and yet accomplishing, in an age, many of the most gigantic reforms and improvements on which this republic prides itsell when we see the mind of the people equal to the task of so far subduing an aristocracy, at least as united, powerful, and splendid, as that which issued from the castles and mansions of France into exile and poverty, fifty years since, as to ensure to the millions the prospect of a free trade with all nations in grain and provisions, while we lay heavy taxes on foreign produce-at such a time as this I would as unwillingly go to battle with the powerful Briton as with the iceble Mexican. The day was when free America rejoiced at every triumph of freedom on the old sod. Will it never, never come again? Since 1819, Britain has destroyed her rotten borough representation in the three kingdoms, and given Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, Greenock, and other populous communities a voice in her Parliament. She has put down the |