Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Second War of Revolution: Or the Great Principles Involved in the Present Controversy Between Parties
That it is the opinion of this committee that the said bank, as at present established, is incompatible with the public safety; that, in the present state of our trade, the said bank has a direct tendency to banish a great part of the specie from the country, so as to produce a scarcity of money, and to collect into the hands of the stockholders of the said bank almost the whole of the money which remains among us; that the accumulations of enormous wealth in the hands of a society who claim perpetual duration will, necessarily, produce a degree of in?uence and power which cannot be entrusted in the hands of any set of men whatsoever, without endangering the public safety; that the said bank, in its corporate capacity, is em powered to hold estates to the amount of ten millions of dollars, and, by the tenor of the pre sent charter, is to exist for ever, without being obliged to yield any emolument to the Go vernment, or to be at all dependent upon it; that the great profits of the bank which will daily increase as money grows scarce, and which already far exceed the profits of European banks, have tempted foreigners to vest their money in this bank, and thus to draw from us large sums for interest.
That foreigners will doubtless be more and more induced to become stockholders, until the time may arrive when this enormous engine of power may become subject to foreign in?uence; this country may be agitated with the politics of European courts, and the good people of America be reduced once more into a state of subordination and dependence upon some one or other of the European powers. That, at best, if it were even confined to the hands of Americans, it would be totally destructive of that equality which ought to prevail in a republic. \ve have nothing in our free and equal Government capable of balancing the in?uence which this bank must create, and we see nothing which, in the course of a few years, can prevent the directors of the bank from governing Pennsylvania. Already we have felt its in?uence indirectly interfering in the measures of Legislature. Already the House of Assembly, the representatives of the people, have been threatened that the credit of our paper currency will be blasted by the bank; and if this growing evil continues, we fear the time is not very distant when the bank will be able to dictate to the Legislature what laws to pass and what to forbear.
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