[Footnote 1:  William J. Duane. ]

[Footnote 2:  Roger B. Taney. ]

[Footnote 3:  Parton’s Jackson, Vol.  III., Chaps. 36-39; American History Leaflets, No. 24; Sumner’s Jackson, Chaps. 13, 14; Von Hoist’s Constitutional History, Vol.  II., pp. 52-79; Roosevelt’s Benton, Chap. 6. ]

For this act the Senate, when it met in December, 1833, passed a vote of censure on Jackson and entered the censure on its journal.  Jackson protested, and asked to have his protest entered, but the Senate refused.  Whereupon Benton of Missouri declared that he would not rest till the censure was removed or “expunged” from the journal.  At first this did not seem likely to occur.  But Benton kept at it, and at last, in 1837, the Senate having become Democratic, he succeeded[1].

[Footnote 1:  When the resolution had passed, the Clerk of the Senate was ordered to bring in the journal, draw a thick black line around the censure, and write across it “Expunged by order of the Senate, January 16, 1837.”]

%341.  Wildcat State Banks.%—­As soon as the reelection of Jackson made it certain that the charter of the Bank of the United States would not be renewed, the same thing happened in 1833 that had occurred in 1811.  The legislature of every state was beset with applications for bank charters, and granted them.  In 1832 there were but 288 state banks in the country.  In 1836 there were 583.  Some were established in order to get deposits of the government money.  Others were started for the purpose of issuing paper money with which the bank officials might speculate.  Others, of course, were founded with an honest purpose.  But they all issued paper money, which the people borrowed on very poor security and used in speculation.

%342.  The Period of Speculation.%—­Never before had the opportunity for speculation been so great.  The new way of doing business, the rise of corporations and manufactures, drew people into the cities, which grew in area and afforded a chance for investors to get rich by purchasing city lots and holding them for a rise in price.  Railroads and canals were being projected all over the country.  Another favorite way of speculating, therefore, was to buy land along the lines of railroads building or to be built.  Suddenly cotton rose a few cents a pound, and thousands of people began to speculate in slaves and cotton land.  Others bought land in the West from the government, at $1.25 an acre, and laid it out into town lots,[1] which they sold for $10 and $20 apiece to people in the East.  In short, everybody who could was borrowing paper money from the banks and speculating.

[Footnote 1:  Sometimes ten such lots would be laid out on an acre]

Under these conditions, any cause which should force the banks to stop loaning money, or to call in that already loaned, would bring on a panic.  And this is just what happened.