No More Learning

74. Perry: Matthew C. Perry, 1794? 1858, who as a naval captain ~'opened" Japan. His squadron entered Yedda Bay July 8, 1853: "Terror reigned on shore. The people of Yedda prepared for defense. " Eventually, "the Shogun fell. . . . The immediate effect was war" [Brooks Adams, The New Empire, 186-189]. Adams shows in his early chapters that the need to export to new markets led to this result.
75. foreign coin: Benton, in describing the efforts to create a U. S. coinage, traces the history of attempts to exclude foreign coin- age [89:68]. He wrote: "which brought the period for the actual and final cessation of the circulation of foreign coins, to the month of November, 1819. . . . An excep-
be kept in use. "Yet that currency is sup- pressed; a currency of intrinsic value, for which they paid interest to nobody, is sup- pressed; and a currency without intrinsic val- ue, a currency of paper subject to every fluctuation, and for the supply of which corporate bodies receive interest, is substi- tuted in its place" [ibid. ].
79. this country: "Since that law took ef- fect, the United States had only been a thor- oughfare for foreign coins to pass through"
[ibid. ].
80. Benton: Thomas Hart B. , 1782-1858, American statesman who entered the U. S. Senate from Missouri in 1821, where he served five terms to 1851. He became a powerful force in the Jackson-Van Buren war against the Bank of the United States. His Thirty Years' View, written 1854-1856, is one of the major historical documents of the period.
8! . OBEUNT . . . : L, "They die. " Benton wrote: "This gives me a right to head a chapter with the names of Mr. John Adams and Mr. Jefferson . . . who, entering public life together, died on the same day,-July 4th, 1826-exactly fifty years after they had both put their hands to that Declaration of Independence" [TYV, I, 87].
82. Not battlements: Benton long protested the sale of lands to settlers and preferred that the land be given. In one or'ation he waxed lyrical and even seemed to break out into verse: "What constitutes a State? / Not high-rais'd battlements, nor labored mound, / Thick wall, nor moated gate," etc. , for 9 lines [TYV, I, 104; 89: 11].
83. Tariff: Benton often derides Tocqueville [cf. 84 below] for his inaccuracies. T be- lieved the tariff was essential to America's
continued existence.
84. Monsieur de Tocqueville: Alexis de T. , 1805-1859, French liberal politician and writer who visited the U. S. to study the penal system. His work, which appeared in France in 1835, and in the U. S. asDemocra- cy in America, 4 vols. , 1835-1840, showed
he studied the penal system a little but everything else a lot more.
85. Macon: [cf. 15 above]. In a description of Nathaniel Macon's heroism in the army and his further service in the General Assem- bly, Benton shows how Cornwallis was final- ly turned back by Greene at the battle of Guilford [TYV, I, 115].
86. Renewal: President Jackson in talking about the renewal of the bank charter said that it had failed to achieve its proper end: "a uniform and sound currency" [TYV, I, 123-124].
87. salt tax: In his efforts to defeat a salt tax proposed for the U. S. , Benton said that in England, "the salt tax has been overthrown by the labors of plain men" [TYV, I, 144].
88. Andy vetoed: Henry Clay sponsored a bill to give funds to the Maysville Turnpike Company, which meant public money would go to a privately owned commercial toll road. President Jackson vetoed it on consti- tutional grounds.
89. unconvertable paper: A central issue in the question of whether or not to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States was that it would be entitled to issue paper mon- ey that could not be converted to its value in gold or silver. Benton, in arguing against renewal, praised France when it stuck to precious metals, but "England, with her overgrown bank, was a prey to all the evils of uncovertible paper" [TYV, I, 187].
90. mines: "The United States possess gold mines, now yielding half a million per an- num, with every prospect of equalling those of Peru. . . . We have what is superior to mines, namely, the exports which command the money of the world; that is to say, the food which sustains life, and the raw materi- als which sustain manufactures" [ibid]. Note that this concept is a central premise of Social Credit.
91. Geryon: The loathsome creature in Dante's Hell which Pound uses as the image of fraud, financial corruption, and the fount
72. Waal
abundance that could replenish itself; but predatory exploitation wasted it. They got their capital from Europe and bled the land to pay it off. "The American tragedy is a continuous history of waste-waste of the natural abundance first, then waste of the new abundance offered by the machine, and then by machines. . . . The usurers now called financiers, plotted against abundance"
tion was continued . . . in favor milled dollars" [TYV,446].
Europe:
America had
natural
of Spanish
76. every dealer . . . : The effect
was to reduce the value of the Spanish coin- age below its value as metal. Thus, "Every money dealer is employed in buying, selling, and exporting them" [ibid. ].
77. exclusion: "At the head of these injuries he was bound to place the violation of the constitution . . . . He denounced this exclu- sion of foreign coins as fraud" [ibid. ].
78. intrinsic values: The states in giving power over the coinage to Congress clearly implied that currency in foreign coins was to
of the
laws
? 508
88/583-584
88/584-585
509
of usury [46:51; 51:16]. The phrase "prize pup" is not in Benton, but a descdption of the bank as monster is: "the great monster, in going down, had carried many others along with her; and . . . slew more in her death than in her life. Vast was her field of destruction-extending all over the United States and reaching to Europe" [TYV, II, 365].
92. Nicholas Biddle: President Jackson's prime opponent in fighting for renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States
[34:70].
93. An amendment . . . murdered indigo: These 21 lines are all taken from a chapter entitled "Revision of the Tariff": "Mr. Ben? ton then proposed an amendment, to impose a duty of 25 cents per pound on imported indigo. . . . He stated his object to be two- fold . . . first, to place the American System beyond the reach of its enemies, by procur- ing a home supply of an article indispensable to its existence; and next, to benefit the South by reviving the cultivation of one of its ancient and valuable staples. Indigo was first planted in the Carolinas and Georgia about the year 1740. . . . An act was passed for the encouragement of its production . . . in the reign of George the Second. . . . At
the breaking out of the Revolution [the ex- port of] it amounted to 1,100,000 Ibs. . . . After the Revolution. . . the British . . . looked to India. . . . The export of American indigo rapidly declined. In 1800 it had fallen to 400,000 Ibs. ; in 1814 to 40,000 Ibs. ; and in the last few years to 6 or 8,000 Ibs. In the meantime our manufactories were growing up; and having no supply of indigo at home, they had to import from abroad. . . . Our manufacturers now paid a high price for fine indigo, no less than $2. 50 per pound. " What's more, "it had to be paid for almost entirely in ready money. " Bad federal legis- lation had drained money from the South to the North, "and this in the midst of the fact that the South, in four staples alone, in cotton, tobacco, rice and indigo . . . had ex- ported produce since the Revolution, to the value of eight hundred millions of dollars,
and the North had exported comparatively nothing. This sum was prodigious; it was nearly equal to half the coinage of the mint of Mexico since the conquest by Cortez . . . The Tariff of 1816 contributed to destroy the cultivation of indigo; sunk the duty on the foreign article, from twenty-five to fif- teen cents per pound" [TYV, 1,19-99].
94. Sardegna: Prob. a press release of 1954 suggested a parallel, but it has not been identified.
95. Freemen . . . : The tariff on indigo did not prevail. A spokesman for the South de- plored the fact that the Congfess controlled by the North would not pass legislation that would enable them, not to look for bounty, but to rely on themselves: "He is not in fact a freeman, who habitually looks to the gov? ernment for pecuniary bounties. . . . An idea more fatal to liberty could not be incul? cated" [TYV, I, 100].
96. Freeholds . . . 1823: From Benton's ar- guments that land should be given to settlers [cf.
82 above], in which he quotes from a proclamation published in Europe: "Mirza Mahomet Saul, Ambassador to England, in
the name, and by the authority of Abbas Mirza, King of Persia, offers to those who shall emigrate to Persia, gratuitous grants of land, good for the production of wheat, bar- ley, rice, cotton, and fruits, free from taxes or contributions of any kind, and with the free enjoyment of their religion . . . London, July 8th, 1823" [TYV, I, 106].
97. Jackson . . . : In the election of 1828 Jackson received 178 (not 183) electoral votes and John Quincy Adams received 83. Benton remarks about the election, "there was no jealousy, or hostile, or aggressive spirit in the North at that time against the South'" [TYV, I, Ill].
98. Stay laws . . . tongue: These 7 lines are from Benton's defense of President Jackson against the critical remarks of Tocqueville, who said he was "a man of violent temper and mediocre talents. . . . He was raised to the Presidency . . . soley by the recollection of a victory which he gained twenty years
ago, under the walls of New Orleans. Benton lists many of Jackson's accomplish- ments (of which Pound notes a few) and tells Tocqueville that his writings may pass for American history in Europe but not in the U. S. [TYV, 1,112].
99. Guilford: A key battle in the revolution- ary war [cf. 85 above]. It was Benton's concern to show that this battle prepared the way for the victory of Yorktown.
100. Yorktown: A town on the Chesapeake Bay where in 1781 the final battles of the American Revolution were fought. Washing- ton captured Cornwallis here.
101. Used plough and hoe: In his encomium on the life of Nathaniel Macon [cf. 15 above], Benton emphasizes his patrician stateliness as well as his life close to the soil. "He was not rich, but rich enough to dis- pense hospitality and charity, to receive all guests in his house, from the President to the day laborer" [TYV, 1,115-117].
102. r&v CX? 8~TOV: H, "He furrows the im- perishable, inexhaustible earth" [Antigone, II,337? 338].
. . .
104. DEBT: Benton quotes from Jackson's first inaugural address: "The observance of a strict and faithful economy . . . will facilitate the extinguishment of the national debt-the unnecessary duration of which is incompati- ble with real independence . . . it will coun- teract that tendency to public and private profligacy which a profuse expenditure of money by the government is but too apt to engender" [TYV, I, 119].
105. Martin Van Buren: [37:1]. He was confirmed as President Jackson's secretary of state.
106. Jas Hamilton: James H. , 1786-1857. The source says: "Mr. James A. Hamilton, of New York, son of the late General Hamilton, being charged with the duties of the office until Mr. Van Buren could enter upon them"
[ibid. ].
107. Ingham: Samuel D. l. , 1779-1860. He became secretary of the treasury in 1829.
108. Berrien: John M. B. , 1781-1856, attor- ney general of the U. S. , 1829-1831.
109. Barry: William T. B. , 1785. 1835, was made postmaster general in 1829.
110. defence: In describing Jackson's "First Annual Message" to the Congress, Benton mentions his sentiments about the navy: "it was, a navy for DEFENCE, isntead of CON- QUEST; and limited to the protection of our coasts and commerce" [TYV, I, 122].
111. West Indies: The recovery of trade with the West Indies, lost following the American Revolution, became a part of Jackson's program [TYV, 1,124].
112. Nathan Dane: 1752? 1835. He drew up the "Anti? Slavery Ordinance of 1787. " Ben- ton quotes from a speech by Daniel Webster: "At the foundation of the consitution of these new northwestern States, we are accus- tomed, sir, to praise the lawgivers of antiqui- ty . . . but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has pro- duced effects' of more distinct, marked, and lasting character, than the ordinance of '87. That instrument) was drawn by Nathan Dane. . . . It fixed, for ever, the character of the population in the vast regions northwest of the Ohio, by excluding them from invol- untary servitude. . . . Now, sir, this great measure again was carried by the north, and by the north alone" [TYV, I, 134? 135].
113. salt tax: This tax, imposed during a time of war, stayed on the books until Presi- dent Jackson got rid of it. It wasn't easy. Benton has a chapter entitled "Repeal of the Salt Tax" [TYV, I, 143-148].
114. A. J. 's first message: "It has been al-
103. Drew a knife
of Macon, Benton celebrates his steadfast? ness to friends. He "would stake himself for a friend, but would violate no point of pub- lic duty to please or oblige him. Of this his relations with Mr. Randolph gave a Signal instance. He drew a knife to defend him in the theatre at Philadelphia" [TYV, I, 117].
: Continuing his
praise
? 510
88/585? 586
88/586-587
511
ready shown that General Jackson in his first annual message to Congress, called in ques~ tiOD both the constitutionality and expedi~ ency of the national bank" [TYV, I, 158].
115. Maysville Road: [cf. 88 above].
116. To pull down . . . : Benton, writing on "Non? Renewal of Charter" of the Bank of the United States, said that it has "too much power" and should not "be allowed to exist in our country. But I knew it was not sufficient to pull down: We must build up also" [TYV I, 187].
117. hard money: The error made by those who refused to recharter the bank in 1811 was in not providing a substitute. Benton would avoid that error by proposing a gold coinage [ibid. ].
118. France . . . : [cf. 89 above].
. . .
[TYV,I,187? 188].
120. laid on Table: Referring to the fate of an earlier resolution he had brought against the bank, Benton said, "This report came . . . just fourteen days before" the end of a six months' session. "It had no chance at all of getting the Senate's attention. The report was, therefore, laid upon the table unanswered, but was printed by order of the Senate . . . " [TYV, I, 188].
121. pawn? broker: The charter of the Bank of England was to expire about the same time as that of the Bank of the United States-lS33. Nine years before that, debate about its renewal took place. Benton sum- marizes some points made in that debate: "Mr. Hume said . . . Let the country gentle- men recollect that the bank was now acting as pawn-broker on a large scale, and lending
money on estates, a system entirely contrary to the original intention of that institution"
[TYV, 1,189].
122. Ellice: Mr. Edward Ellice said: "It (the Bank of England) is a great monopolizing body, enjoying privileges which belonged to no other corporation [Pound's "contrap- tion" may be intentional}) and no other class of his majesty's subjects" [ibid. ].
123. stock? holders: Defenders of the bank said the debate was unfair as it would dimin- ish the value of their property. Benton said that was absurd, that American stockholders knew the charter had to come up for re- newal [TYV, I, 190].
124. real estate: Said Bentun of the stock? holders: "They have been dividing seven per cent. per annum . . . and have laid up a real estate of three millions of dollars for future division" [ibid. ].
125. at 46: Benton produced a case involv? ing the bank which was decided by the Suo preme Court. He read part of the case "showing that it was a case of usury at the rate of forty? six per cent" [ibid. ].
126. SCIRE FACIAS: L, "Make cause to know. " In law, "a judicial unit founded upon some matter of record and requiring the party proceeded against to show cause why the record should not be enforced, an- nulled, or vacated" [Webster's]; or "why letters patent, such as a charter, should not be revoked" [Oxford Universal Dictionary, 3d ed. ]. Continuing from 125 above: "so that the bank, being convicted of taking usury, in violation of its charter, was liable to be deprived of its charter, at any time that a scire facias should issue against it" [ibid. ].
127. institution: Said Benton: "Mr. Presi? dent, I object to the renewal of the Charter of the Bank of the United States, because I look upon the bank as an institution too great and too powerful to be tolerated in a government of free and equal laws" [TYV, I, 191].
128. Vice President: The vice'president ob? jected that Benton's statements were out of order under the motion he had made. Ben- ton insisted he was in order as he had asked leave to bring in a joint resolution: "The Vice President then directed Mr. Benton to
proceed" [ibid. ].
129.