that the Post Office Department should take only specie. A committee which was appointed did not call the meeting together again because it was found that the law allowed no other course than that which had been taken. The Collector at New York declared that he would take bank notes for duties on his own responsibility, but was rebuked and corrected by the Secretary of the Treasury; yet the receipt of treasury drafts on the deposit banks for duties was authorized. In New Orleans the Collector and Postmaster seem to have nullified the orders.[1]
The Secretary of the Treasury also addressed a circular to the deposit banks, asking them whether they expected to resume soon, what steps they were taking to bring about resumption, and what measures they proposed to take to indemnify the government for the breach of contract.
The feeling of the administration and its supporters toward the deposit banks at this time was one of animosity and resentment. It was felt that the Jackson party had broken down the great Bank for them, had given them a magnificent chance, had put faith in them and loaded them with favors, and had even incurred odium on their behalf, and that the banks had returned this only by selfishness and folly. It was felt that they had made no return to the Jackson party, although they had in fact given it their votes, but that they had by their extravagant behavior brought disgrace upon the administration and betrayed its responsibility. No one took up the defense of these banks, and the rancor against them found little expression. The most outspoken denunciation of them was in a letter by Jackson, July 9th:
"The history of the world never has recorded such base treachery and perfidy as has been committed by the deposit banks against the government, and purely with the view of gratifying Biddle and the Barings, and by the suspension of specie payments, degrade, embarrass, and ruin if they could their own country." "Now is the time to separate the government from all banks—receive and disburse the revenue in nothing but gold and silver coin, and the circulation of our coin through all public disbursements will regulate the currency forever hereafter—keep the government free from all embarrassment, whilst it leaves the commercial community to trade upon its own capital, and the banks to accommodate it with such exchange and credit as best suits their own interests—both being money making concerns, devoid of patriotism, looking alone to their own interests—regardless of all others."[2]
The opposition exhausted the vocabulary of impatient derision and contumely upon the separation of the treasury and the banks. They built up a theory of due connection between the banks and the fiscal operations of the government, out of which they affirmed that specie payments and financial health must necessarily follow, and not otherwise. Webster especially distinguished himself by going about the country elucidating these doctrines. From them were derived the stock objections to the
