Excerpt from Speech of Mr. Davis of Massachusetts on the Sub-Treasury Bill in the Senate of the United States, January 23, 1840
Gentlemen may tax their ingenuity, they may task their inven tions, to discover other causes of distress - they may belabor and hold up to scorn and execration the banks as long as they please - they cannot change the facts, for they cannot obliterate history. Things were well, and every body knows it, till 1833. Then began the bank reform by the removal of the deposites - and then began this rapid series of expansion, contraction and explosion-then follow ed crisis after crisis - then came the derangement of the exchanges, and the embarrassments which have overwhelmed the country - then came, too, the nine hundred banks of which the Senator speaks, though he has probably swelled the number beyond historical truth.
The Senator admits, what cannot be denied, that the Administra tion proposed and carried into effect the State bank deposite system. It was in this place and by them that State banks were taken into favor, petted, and boastingly held out to the country as affording a better and safer currency. Into them was the revenue put in enor mous sums, and they were directed to loan freely upon it by the President for the accommodation of the people, and it was his pride and pleasure to make known to us that the public money was thus employed, instead of being locked up; a striking commentary upon the present plan of vaults and safes, Mr. President.
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