The Panic of 1819 (24 page)
Authors: Murray N. Rothbard
26
Robert Y. Hayne to Langdon Cheves, February 22, 1819, in Theodore D. Jervey,
Robert Y. Hayne and His Times
(New York: The Macmillan Co., 1909), pp. 85–87. Hayne, a wealthy rice planter, was later to become Senator and Governor, and leading proponent of nullification.
27
On Cardozo, see Dorfman,
Economic Mind
, vol. 2, pp. 554–55.
28
Editorial in the Charleston
Southern Patriot
, reprinted in the Cleveland
Register
, August 31, 1819.
29
Murphey had been Justice of the State Supreme Court and was to become known as father of the state’s public school system. In 1816, Murphey had been a staunch advocate of a branch of the Bank of the United States in Fayetteville, and considered inconvertible paper as “vicious.” Now, as a debtor to the Bank, he felt that he was being unjustly compelled to repay. Murphey to Colonel William Polk, July 24, 1821, in William Henry Hoyt, ed.,
The Papers of Archibald D. Murphey
(Raleigh, N.C.: E.M. Uzzell Co., 1914), pp. 216–17. Also Dorfman,
Economic Mind
, vol. 1, pp. 376–78.
30
Murphey,
The Papers
, p. 216.
31
Raleigh
Star and North Carolina State Gazette
, May 14, 1819.
32
Washington (D.C.)
National Intelligencer
, May 26, 1819. Also see the editorial in the Wilmington
Recorder
, June 16, 1819, reprinted in the Washington (D.C.)
National lntelligencer
, July 20, 1819.
33
Raleigh
Star and North Carolina State Gazette
, December 22, 1820.
34
Knox,
A History of Banking
, p. 549.
35
“Cato,” in Washington (D.C.)
National Intelligencer
, June 19, 1819.
36
“Philo-Economicus,” in Richmond
Enquirer
, June 15, 1819.
37
New York
Daily Advertiser
, June 12, 1819.
38
“Colbert,” in Richmond
Enquirer
, November 6, 1819.
39
Knox,
A History of Banking
, p. 489.
40
Ibid. Boston
New England Palladium
, March 2, 1819.
41
New York
American
, March 6, 1819.
42
Dewey,
State Banking
, p. 66.
43
Washington (D.C.)
National Intelligencer
, June 1, 1819.
44
“A Citizen,” in the Baltimore
Telegraph
, reprinted in the Richmond
Enquirer
, June 1, 1819.
45
Baltimore
Federal Republican
, July 1, 1819.
46
Ibid., July 13, 1819.
47
For a discussion of Thomas Law and his proposals, see Chapter IV. The charge was inaccurate, since Law primarily advocated a national governmental currency plan, rather than suspension of specie payment by private banks.
48
Niles’ Weekly Register
15 (September 12, 1818): 33.
49
Maryland General Assembly,
Official Journal of the Proceedings of the House of Representatives, 1820–21
(February 15, 1821): 109–10.
50
Delaware General Assembly,
Journal of the House of Representatives, 1819
(January 26, 1819): 91.
51
Ibid.,
1820
(January 18, 20, 28; February 1, 2, 1820): 58ff., 73ff., 128ff., 132.
52
Ibid. (February 8, 11, 1820), pp. 169, 196.
53
New Jersey Legislature,
Votes and Proceedings of the General Assembly, 1819–20
(June 2, 1820), pp. 202–05.
54
New York
Evening Post
, June 15, 1819.
55
Banks were generally solvent in New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, particularly in Boston. Cf. Sumner,
History of Banking
, p. 112.
56
Boston
New England Palladium
, July 4, 1820.
57
T.D. Seymour Bassett, “The Rise of Cornelius Peter Van Ness, 1782–1826,”
Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society
10 (March 1942): 8–16.
58
Van Ness was scheduled to become chairman of the board of the new bank.
59
Vermont General Assembly,
Journal of the House, 1818–19
(November 3, November 7): 127ff., 150ff. The Governor had previously vetoed a less stringent charter for the bank.
60
Vermont General Assembly,
Journal of the House, 1819–20
(October 15, 1819): 11–12.
61
The Raguet Report is found in Pennsylvania Legislature,
Journal of the Senate, 1819–20
(January 29, 1820): 221–36, and the documentary appendix to the report is to be found in ibid. (February 14, 1820): 311–37.
62
Pennsylvania Legislature,
Journal of the House, 1819–20
(December 10, 1819): 20–28. Also Philip S. Klein,
Pennsylvania Politics, 1817–32
(Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1940), p. 98.
63
Duane was particularly bitter over the leading role played by Findlay, as State Treasurer in 1814, in pushing through a mass chartering of 42 banks over the veto of Governor Simon Snyder.
64
Pennsylvania Legislature,
Journal of the House, 1819–20
(January 28, 1820): 476–78.
65
Philadelphia
Aurora
, February 4, 1820.
66
Pennsylvania Legislature,
Journal of the House, 1818–19
, p. 450.
67
Ibid.,
1819–20
(February 1, 1820): 459–66.
68
Washington (D.C.)
National Intelligencer
, March 25, 1820. See Appendix A on internal improvements as a suggested remedy for the depression.
69
Philadelphia
Union
, August 17, August 24, 1821.
70
For a warning about loan office agitation as late as the end of 1821, see “Adam Lock,” in Philadelphia
Union
, December 11, 1821. For early opposition to any government loans, see “A,” in the Philadelphia
United States Gazette
, December 22, 1818. The
Gazette
was predecessor of the
Union
.
71
For the Ohio situation, see especially Huntington,
History
, pp. 255–351. Also Sumner,
History of Banking
, p. 152; Greene, “Thoughts on the Present,” pp. 121–22; Rowe, “Money and Banks,” pp. 74–84; Goss,
Cincinnati
, pp. 139–43.
72
Worthington was a country gentleman and leading political figure in the state, a former Senator and leader of the “Chillicothe Junta.” He suffered financial reverses in the depression of 1819. Ohio Legislature,
Journal of the
Senate, 1818–19
, p. 222.
73
Brown was a wealthy landowner and former judge. Ohio Legislature,
Journal of the House, 1819–20
(December 7, 1819): 9–15.
74
Philadelphia
Union
, March 5, 1819; Huntington,
History
, pp. 295–97; R. Carlyle Buley,
The Old Northwest, Pioneer Period, 1815–40
(Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1950), vol. 1, p. 586.
75
In the Cincinnati
Gazette
, reprinted in Detroit
Gazette
, December 11, 1819.
76
Mitchell, “Indiana’s Growth,” pp. 384–85; Esarey,
History
, p. 280; Nathan Ewing, President of the Bank of Vincennes, to Secretary Crawford, January 9, 1819, in U.S. Congress,
American State Papers: Finance
3, no. 637 (February 14, 1822): 734.
77
Dunn,
Indiana
, pp. 322ff.
78
Logan Esarey,
State Banking in Indiana
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1912), pp. 221ff.; idem, “The First Indiana Banks,”
Indiana Quarterly Magazine of History
6 (December 1910): 144–58.
79
Washington (D.C.)
National Intelligencer
, June 19, 1819.
80
Noble was a member of one of the most eminent families in Indiana. He was a director of the Vincennes Bank and the new state bank. Jennings was President of the Indiana Constitutional Convention, its first Governor, and later Representative in Congress. Hendricks was a Congressman and secretary of the Indiana Constitutional Convention—later to be Governor and Senator. In later years, he followed Jackson, but even so upheld the United States Bank. Esarey,
State Banking
, p. 229.
81
Esarey, “The First Indiana Banks,” p. 149.
82
Mitchell, “Indiana’s Growth,” p. 389; Buley,
Old Northwest
, p. 598.
83
Dunn,
Indiana
, p. 328.
84
Esarey, “The First Indiana Banks,” p. 154.
85
Dowrie,
Development
, pp. 9–14, 17–22.
86
Garnett,
State Banks
, pp. 1ff.
87
Dowrie,
Development
, pp. 23–35; Garnett,
State Banks
, p. 8.
88
On the petition and the introduction of the bill, see Illinois General Assembly,
House Journal, 1820–21
(January 13, 1821): 157–58.
89
Ibid. (January 29, 1821), pp. 227–29; Buley,
Old Northwest
, pp. 599ff.
90
Dowrie,
Development
, p. 24.
91
Bond was a prosperous farmer, and former judge.
92
Illinois General Assembly,
House Journal, 1820–21
(January 30, 1821): 236.
93
Ibid. (February 2, 1821): 261–71.
94
One of the supporters of the bill in the Senate was immediately appointed a cashier of the bank.
95
Garnett,
State Banks
, pp. 9–12; and Dowrie,
Development
, pp. 26–28.
96
Dowrie,
Development
, p. 35.
97
Davidson and Stuve,
Complete History
, p. 307; Knox,
A History of Banking
, p. 716.
98
See Floyd Russell Dain,
Every House a Frontier
(Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1956), p. 103.
99
Anderson, “Frontier Economic Problems, I,” pp. 60–62; Cable,
Bank
, pp. 52–70; Cable, “Some Early Missouri Bankers,”
Missouri Historical Review
26 (January 1932): 117–19; Dorsey, “Panic,” p. 83.
100
Dorsey, “Panic,” p. 84. The letter was published in the St. Louis
Enquirer
, March 17, 1821.
101
Hamilton, “Relief Movement,” pp. 58ff.
102
Franklin
Missouri Intelligencer
, February 26, 1821, quoted in Hamilton, “Relief Movement,” p. 56.
103
Missouri General Assembly,
Journal of the House of Representatives
, 1st General Assembly, Special Session, 1821, pp. 74–77, 84–86.
104
Anderson, “Frontier Economic Problems, I,” pp. 65, 68.
105
July 14, 1821. Hamilton, “Relief Movement,” p. 69.
106
Missouri General Assembly,
Journal of the House of Representatives
, 2d General Assembly, 1821, pp. 152–53.
107
August 14, 1821, September 25, 1821; in Hamilton, “Relief Movement,” p. 77.
108
Thus see Primm,
Economic Policy
, pp. 14, 17.
109
Anderson, “Frontier Economic Problems, I,” p. 66.
110
Missouri v. William Carr Lane
. See Cable,
Bank
, p. 79.
111
Tucker came from a very prominent Virginia family. He was a halfbrother of John Randolph. He later returned to Virginia to become professor of law at William and Mary College and leading theoretician of the pro-slavery forces.
112
Abernethy, “Early Development,” pp. 311–25.
113
Hamer,
Tennessee
, pp. 231–32; Campbell,
Development
, pp. 43ff.; Beard, “Joseph McMinn,” pp. 162ff.; Parks, “Felix Grundy,” p. 29.
114
Hamer,
Tennessee
, pp. 232ff.
115
Parks, “Felix Grundy.” Yeatman, reputed to be the wealthiest merchant in Tennessee, was the son-in-law of Andrew Ervin, and was soon to establish his own private, unchartered bank. Sellers, “Banking.”
