George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

The refusal of President Tyler, last summer, to sign the bill for a National Bank, gave, as you know, an opportunity to Mr. Clay to attempt to prevent Tyler from being again a candidate for the Presidency; indeed, to attempt to compel him to resign. In this last he failed, but he necessarily broke up the party of both of them,—the Whig party,—of which Mr. Clay retains much the larger portion, but of which neither has enough to command a majority in the nation, or in Congress. Of course, effectual measures cannot be taken, except under a great pressure of popular opinion, compelling Congress to act for the good of the nation. This is the present state of affairs, in reference to practical legislation. President Tyler and his Cabinet are in a small minority, both in Congress and with the people.

Meantime, large portions of the country are suffering. At the South and Southwest—where individuals and States borrowed rashly and unwisely—there is great distress. To individuals, the Bankrupt Law is bringing appropriate relief; but to the States, the process must be more slow. Some of them, like Illinois and Indiana, never will pay. They have not the means, and cannot get the means. They are honest and hopeless bankrupts, and will do what they can, but it will not be much. Others, like Mississippi,—which repudiated its obligations so shamelessly,—will be compelled to pay by the force of public opinion. Others, like Pennsylvania and Maryland, are troubled by the pressure of the times, but are able to pay, and have no thought of avoiding it or attempting to avoid it. All the rest—eighteen or twenty—are in no trouble, nor are likely to be. The lesson will have been an useful one, but the final loss, except in the atrocious case of the Pennsylvania United States Bank, will be small to any one. But Europe, I trust, will lend us no more money. It is for the benefit of both sides of the Atlantic that she should not. In New England our credit has been untouched, and our industry prosperous. At the South, and in the slave States, they are poor and growing poorer, even where they are not in debt. . . . .

Now at this moment the country is in debt, perhaps to the amount of twenty-five millions of dollars. The sum is trifling, no doubt, but it is wholly odious to the people to be in debt at all. The means, too, for raising a sufficient revenue are abundant; the country, notwithstanding the indebtedness of the five or six suffering States, and the