Virginia Argus

From the Boston Patriot.

SHORT READINGS.

Bank of the United States.

The question is--Shall the Charter of this Corporation be renewed?

As death is its natural course, it is certainly incumbent on those who urge its prolongation to offer clear, explicit, and above all constitutional reasons why it should be resuscitated by a renewal of its charter. I will step out of the usual course and attempt to show why it should not.

All we have yet heard is the pathetic annunciation of the horrid grunts that will stun our ears in its last agonies. Let us not mistake the doleful wailings of the convict or his friends for the solid reasons for a reprieve from a just and wise sentence.

Thus much premised let us attend to the history and merits of the case.

Soon after the adoption of the federal constitution, a horde of speculators and brokers who acted as legislators and made the name of a federalist disgraceful by taking it to themselves. The first great effort of their fiscal juggling was, to take from the heroes of our revolution, their earnings, and in effect their laurels and present both a free will offering to the embodied avarice and ambition of a monied aristocracy, at that time designated by the name of the Essex Junto, and ever since developing and displaying itself as a British faction.

Whatever might have been the design, the evident effect of this deep and most ungrateful stroke of policy was to extinguish in a great and respectable portion of our citizens, those republican virtues and affections which bind both rich and poor to their country by the fibres of the soul, and to substitute for patriotism those dependencies which make the poor subservient to the rich. Such a triumph over the virtues and honor of our country might have sufficed the ambition of our purse proud lordlings and the enmity of those who wished to impose penance on the heroes who achieved our independence. But avarice demanded more. The soldiers certificates purchased at from 2/6 to 5s on the pound were funded at par, carrying interest to the new fortunate holder. By the charter of the bank in question a major portion of its stock consists of this funded debt due from the nation and drawing interest of course. Hence if it did not issue bills beyond the amount of its capital, it will be perceived its stockholders would draw an interest of 12 per cent (allowing the soldiers certificates to have been bought at par.) the further privilege conferred on the stockholders, of exchanging several millions of their own paper, not on interest, beyond the amount of their capital, for as many millions in good approved notes on interest, adds another impolitic, absurd, and unconstitutional feature to this illegitimate institution.

The average legal interest in the United States, is 6 per cent. Those thrifty patriots, who now bellow so loudly for the anticipated distresses of our country, have by a licensed fraud-- by chartered immunity, if the phrase sound better, been allowed for 20 years to receive from 12 to 20 per cent per annum, upon their real capital.

This cursory view of the history and charter of this bank will enable any man to estimate at once the merits of the claim of its stockholders to a renewal of its charter, so far as depends on the question of justice between them and the Union.

In my next I will consider the claim of these borrowers.

COMMON SENSE.