The experience the government had thus twice passed through (1814 and 1837) led the people to believe it ought not to keep its money in state banks.  But just where the money should be kept was a disputed party question.  The Whigs insisted on a third National Bank like the old one Jackson had destroyed.  Van Buren wanted what was called an “Independent Treasury,” and after four attempts the act establishing it was passed in 1840.

The law created four “receivers general” (one each at Boston, New York, Charleston, and St. Louis), to whom all money collected by the United States officials should be turned over, and directed that “rooms, vaults, and safes” should be provided for the safe keeping of the money.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Shepard’s Van Buren, Chap. 9.]

As might be expected, the people laid all the blame for the hard times on Van Buren and his party.  The Democrats, they said, had destroyed the National Bank; they had then removed the United States money, and given it to “pet” state banks; they had then distributed the surplus, and by taking the surplus from the state banks had brought on the panic.  Whether this was true or not, the people believed it, and were determined to “turn out little Van.”

The campaign of 1840 was the most novel, exciting, and memorable that had yet taken place.  Three parties had candidates in the field.  The Antislavery party put forward James Gillespie Birney and Thomas Earle.  The Democrats in their convention renominated Van Buren, but no Vice President.  The Whigs nominated W.H.  Harrison, and John Tyler of Virginia.  The mention of the Antislavery party makes it necessary to account for its origin.

%348.  The Antislavery Movement%.—­The appearance of the Antislavery or Liberty party marks the beginning in national affairs of an antislavery movement which had long been going on in the states.  When the Missouri Compromise was made in 1820, many people believed that the troublesome matter of slavery was settled.  This was a mistake, and the compromise really made matters worse.  In the first place, it encouraged the men in Illinois who favored slavery to attempt to make it a slave state by amending the state constitution, an attempt which failed in 1824 after a long struggle.  In the second place, it aroused certain men who had been agitating for freeing the slaves to redoubled energy.  Among these were Benjamin Lundy, James Gillespie Birney, and William Lloyd Garrison, who in 1831 established an abolition newspaper called the Liberator, which became very famous.  In the third place, it led to the formation all over the North, and in many places in the South, of new abolition societies, and stirred up the old ones and made them more active.[1]

[Footnote 1:  James G. Birney and his Times, Chap. 12.]

For a time these societies carried on their work, each independent of the others.  But in 1833, a convention of delegates from them met at Philadelphia, and formed a national society called the American Antislavery Society.[1]