Burlington Free Press

RIGHT ABOUT FACE

The Washington Globe, a paper which has been waging hot war for six years against "paper banks" and "rag money," throws a complete somerset! The most expert dancing-master could not have changed partners quicker than it has been done by Mr Van Buren. Only hear the Globe of Friday last :—

"The chimerical scheme of an exclusive metallic currency has never been entertained by the friends of the past or the present administration, nor has there been the slightest attempt to interfere with the credit system. The sentiment of Mr Tallmadge on this point properly receives the approval of his political brethren. A currency exclusively metallic has never been proposed, nor advocated, either by President Jackson, Mr Van Buren, Mr Benton, or any other friend of the administration high in authority, or in the confidence of the democracy."

"Banks cannot be dispensed with, except at the sacrifice of all justice in regard to the contracts made under a mixed currency, nor without a violation of the faith pledged in the legislation (where honesty obtained) by which they were established. The subject must be left to gradual reform, to which the intelligence of the people of the respective States is fully adequate."
Here the "Experiment" which Jackson, Benton, Kendall, Van Buren, &c. backed by the Globe and Argus, have been trying for years, and until it has ruined the country, is finally abandoned! Indeed the Globe goes further and denounces that grand 'Experiment" as a 'Chimerical Scheme.' Our friends, long ago, called it a "HUM BUG."

This excited the indignation of those who now confess that the scheme is chimerical."

The Administration, though backing out, has not the magnanimity to confess.

A frank avowal of error goes far in atoning for it. But the Administration, ever false, denies that it was in favor of the hum bug."

Unfortunately for the Globe, the evidence against its present assertion is on file. This is the former language of the Executive organ:——

"In seven months from this time BANK. RAGS WILL BE ABOLISHED, and the whole country will be overspread with gold every farmer and merchant of the west will have a long silk purse of open net work, through the interstices of which the yellow gold will shine and glitter."

Such was the slang of the Globe and its echoes—and such the cant of the Administration, during the Presidential canvass. Such is still the cant of Benton, Wright, Cambreleng, &c. Mr. Van Buren is panic-struck. He promised Jackson and Benton to go the "hum bug." He did go it as long as his courage lasted, and after shaking in the wind for weeks, he has jibed over to the Rives and Tallmadge side of the question. Where the next gust of wind will blow him remains to be seen.

The Globe says that a metallic currency "has never been proposed nor advocated by Col. Benton."

We summon Col. Benton to the stand as a witness to prove the falsehood of this assertion. This witness, in his recent Letter to Mr. Smallwood, says :—

"We owe a debt of gratitude to General Jackson for practically teaching the country the great lesson THAT WE CAN DO INFINITELY BETTER WITHOUT PAPER MONEY BANKS THAN WITH THEM."