of Boston also proposed the same step and resolved to introduce the prompt payment of balances after resumption.[1]
The severity of the contraction by which the New York plan had been pursued during 1837 is shown in the following figures. Such a policy could not fail to produce a party of opposition. The demand liabilities of the New York city banks, exclusive of the Dry Dock Bank, were, on the 1st of January, 1836, $26.9 millions; on the same date, in 1837, they were $25.4 millions; and in 1838, $12.9 millions.[2] April 7, 1838, they had $2.50 of assets for $1 of debt. They also had New York State stocks to the amount of $1 million, for which specie was expected before May 10th. The banks of Pennsylvania owed to the banks of New York city $1.2 million.[3]
As the time approached for the re-assembling of the bank convention, Biddle published another letter to Adams. He was bound to find some reasons for not participating in it, and they must be elevated. He declared that, "Our principles incline us to an early resumption; our preparations would justify it; and if we were at all influenced by the poor ambition of doing what others cannot do so readily, or the still poorer desire of profiting by the disasters of others, the occasion would certainly be tempting. * * * The great prerogative of strength is not to be afraid of doing right; and it belongs to those who have no fear that prudent counsels will be mistaken for timidity to examine calmly whether the general interest of the country recommends the voluntary resumption of specie payments in May next. * * * The credit system of the United States and the exclusively metallic system are now fairly in the field, face to face with each other; one or the other must fall." It is a political struggle, and resumption is wanted for political effect. The Executive is entirely hostile to banks, and resumption can only be accomplished, as it was in 1817, with the help of a Bank of the United States. It is true that exchange is low at New York, but this is only temporary and unimportant. The plan of the Bank of the United States has been especially to produce no fall in prices, and to make no contraction, and to facilitate the shipment of the crops of the South and West, "placing its own confidential agent in England to protect the great commercial and pecuniary interests of the country. This seemed to be its proper function. It was thus that it hoped to discharge its duty to the whole Union." He blames the New York banks for their rigorous contraction. The New Yorkers have sought loans elsewhere. The effect of this system has been to lower the value of the goods or currency in which the southern and western debtors must pay, and to have the same effect upon our means of paying the foreign creditor. May is a very unfit time to resume. Resumption ought to be general and include the South and West, but they cannot be ready then, because the returns on only a small part of the cotton crop will have been received. The New York men are coerced by their own
