The controversy in relation to the removal of the deposits from the United States Bank, which raged for years with many phases in its symptoms and violence, was as its height while the Custom House was becoming a fixed fact. The great fire of 1835 swept away the Merchants' Exchange, that was supposed fire-proof, and called fresh attention to the new edifice. Just as his second term of office was drawing to a close, President Jackson issued the famous "specie circular" which turned the financial world upside down. The gold and silver of the country was drawn into the treasury of the Government. Then came disaster. Business men could not pay their debts. The storm struck Wall Street with terrific force. Within the first three weeks in April (1837) two hundred and fifty New York houses stopped payment. In New Orleans the failures reached twenty-seven millions in two days. The panic extended to the remotest quarter of the Union. Universal bankruptcy seemed impending. After deliberate consultation every bank in New York suspended payment.
With these troublous events, purely commercial in character, the stock market had only an incidental connection. There came a depression in the stock business as in the general trade of the country. The New York Stock Exchange was not then of age, so to speak, it having seen but twenty years of actual life. It has a traditional history, indeed, dating back to 1792; but the real formation of the association was in 1817. At first it consisted of twenty-five members, and no initiation fee was required. Anthony Stockholm is said to have been the first presiding officer. The meetings were held here and there—in the office of Samuel L. Beebe, 47 Wall Street; in the old Tontine Coffee-House; in a room in the rear of Leonard
