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Time held his course. Another year went by, and
brought us to the Sixth since the Removal. The year
which I pass over, was marked by many public and domestic
incidents worthy of note in the history of Quodlibet.
Gladly would I have tarried to entertain my reader with
some of these—but I am admonished of the necessity of
bringing these desultory annals to a close. Especially might
I find much to interest many of those who will peruse these
pages, in the private and personal affairs of the Borough;
some of the events of the bygone year being of a nature to
kindle up pathetic emotions in their bosoms. The blank
despair of Agamemnon Flag when he first heard of the
flight of Nicodemus Handy;—his melancholy visits of consolation
to the bereaved family; the disinterested avowal of
his long-smothered and smouldering love to the heiress apparent;
and his offer of his hand and fortune—consisting of
a new suit of clothes and a horse and gig, purchased on
credit—to this dejected lady; his still blanker despair, his

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disappointment and vows of revenge when, after listening to
his suit, he found it announced that she had sailed without
him, to make the grand tour of Europe;—and finally, the
stoical philosophy with which he renounced all claim to the
reversionary interest in the one hundred and sixty thousand
dollars taken from the bank, as well as the net proceeds of
Handy Place, and the rows of buildings, finished and unfinished,
in Quodlibet—these incidents would furnish an
episode of tenderness and passion without a parallel since
the Medea of Euripides.

But these excursions are foreign from the purpose of this
book, and I am sure would be disallowed by the respectable
committee at whose instance I have entered upon this task.
Indeed, they have explicitly enjoined that I divulge nothing
under their sanction, touching the concerns of Quodlibet
which in any manner borders upon the romantic. Upon
these subjects, their caution is, Nulli tacuisse nocet, tutum
silentii præmium. I must, therefore, reluctantly pretermit
all such matter—reserving for some other occasion, the gratification
of the public curiosity therein.

In looking back upon the public events of this interval, I
deem it necessary, in passing, merely to notice the fact that
the New Lights were greatly rejoiced to find in Mr. Van
Buren's message to congress a complete justification of Mr.
Woodbury's promise to Mr. Flam, the import of which was
to assure our representative that the President had made up
his mind, after the rejection of that measure, to carry the
Independent Treasury in spite of the people. Our uncompromising,
fearless, and unshakeable Quods, true to the
dictates of their creed, were, I repeat, greatly rejoiced at the
manly perseverance and unquenchable self-will with which
the President delivered over that question to the “Sober
Second Thoughts” (a pest upon the unlucky coincidence
of that phrase with my patronymic!—it hath given license

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to the tongues of the wags, to my annoyance) of the people.
Every good New Light democrat in the land understood
the hint—and a presidential hint is no small matter to
a democrat now-a-days. Truly delightful was it to see how
it acted upon the New Lights. Not a man amongst them
who had hitherto halted on a scruple of conscience, but became
thereupon, in the twinkling of an eye, a devoted champion
of the Independent Treasury;—and that, too, without
knowing, or caring to know, what it was. It was hoisted
in capitals, at the head of Eliphalet Fox's Weekly, and became
forthwith, as it were, a word written on our banner.
We were, one and all, converted into milites subsignani, and
became the Maccabees of this new kind of Independent
Treasury.

It has doubtless often occurred to the reader of this irregular
history to inquire how it comes to pass that the historian
has ventured to relate with such composure, nay, with
such complacency, what superficial thinkers, at least, might
deem to be the changes in the political principles of the
New Lights. Superficial is a good word and truly explains
the case. Our principles, as every one who is gifted with
sufficient astuteness could not fail to have observed throughout
this narrative—and as, in fact, we have more than once
insinuated—are much deeper than the measures we, from
time to time, find it convenient to adopt. We hold a change
of measures, a change of opinions, a change of doctrine and
even a change of established facts as nothing. But a change of
men we totally abhor; a change of office, unless in the way of
promotion, we utterly discountenance; and a change from a
majority to a minority we execrate as wholly abominable,
detestable, and, in no wise to be endured. Now, in our
creed, men, officers, and majorities make up the complex
idea of what we denominate principle. The whole scope
of the New Light Philosophy is, by the vigor of this thing

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principle, as I have defined it, to keep the Whigs down and
our modern shool of New Light Democrats up. We
proudly appeal to our past history to sustain our consistency
in this pursuit. Let any dispassionate observer trace our
meanderings through the last ten years: he will see the efficacy
of our system manifested in the wonderful, the almost
miraculous conversion of Old Blue Light Federalists, and
Federalists of every hue, into the Born Veterans of Democracy,
and in investing these worthy relics of ancient patriotism
with the most profitable offices in the gift of the government.
He will see it in the merciless war—bellum ad
internecionem—waged by our forces in the name of the
People, against credit, commerce and industry: he will remark
how abundantly, and, as it were, by magic, it has fed
the nation upon the economical, and therefore republican
food of promises, relating to a sound currency—especially
those referring to the gold and silver, whilst it was stealing
along into the cheap and convenient system of a government
paper in the shape of Treasury notes. And he will observe,
with unfeigned surprise and redoubled admiration, how
effectually it has secured to us the services and the money
of the most opulent individuals in the land, and of the largest
corporations created by the states—in a most signal degree
those concerned in public works—whilst it preaches
against wealth, chartered privileges and monopolies; and, by
its zeal against them, has enlisted almost every penniless
man, every wasted bankrupt, and every cracked reputation
in the Union upon our side. But we have a still more
illustricus exemplification of the practical value of our philosophy
in the address with which affairs are managed by
the head of the Treasury.

Amos Kendall's letter of directions to the Hon. Middleton
Flam, with which my readers have been favored in a
previous chapter, it will be remembered, required the New

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Lights to support the Independent Treasury, and as necessary
thereto, to take ground against the State Banks, as altogether
unsafe depositories of the public money. He further
intimated, supposing we might be diffident about this,
that the Secretary of the Treasury had already furnished
evidence of this fact, and would, at the proper time, make
it manifest that the Government had lost more money by
the banks than by any other agents it had ever trusted. Our
club had never before been aware that Mr. Woodbury had
reversed his old opinions on this grave question, and we,
therefore, lost no time in making a call upon our member
for information. Great anxiety was felt to possess the Secretary's
views. A substantial vindication of the Independent
Treasury in this aspect, by the overthrow of the banks
on the authority of the man who had built them up, was a
desideratum which we all acknowledged; and its success
we were prepared to regard as the greatest triumph of the
New Light principle, to be accomplished through the influence
of that matchless Secretary, “whose mind,” as Theodore
Fog once remarked, “was endued with a radiating
faculty sufficiently intense to light up the bottom of a bog,
impart a vitreous translucency to the home of the frog, and
illuminate the abode of the bat with a lustre more brilliant
than that which glittered through the boudoirs of the palace
of Aladdin.” We were aware that in 1834 his duty required
him to prove that the State Banks, whilst unmolested
by the vexatious presence of a Bank of the United States,
were the safest of all possible custodiaries of the people's
money; aud that it was the Monster Bank alone which incapacitated
them to fulfil their engagements to the Government—
thence deducing the fact, that when the monster was
dead, the public funds could be no otherwise than safe in
their keeping. We were aware that at that time it was
more particularly his duty to praise the State Banks, because

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the unprincipled Whigs denied the fact of their safety, and
opposed the scheme of giving them the public treasure, on
the very ground that the Government had been a heavy
loser by them from the period of the war up to the date of
the charter of the Bank. We had read carefully his report
of the 12th of December in that year, and remembered these
words:

“It is a remarkable fact connected with this inquiry, though
often represented otherwise, that not a single selected state bank
failed between the expiration of the old charter and the grant of
the new one; and that none of our losses included in our unavailable
funds, happened until sometime in 1817, after the United
States Bank was in operation.”

This, and some other facts culled from the same report,
constituted the armory of weapons by which our club so
manfully fought and prostrated the croaking and factious
Whigs of Quodlibet, when, in their ravings, they predicted
loss from our employment of the pet banks. But the New
Lights being now ordered to take another tack, and being
promised a good fabrication of facts to fortify our position,
we rested on our arms like soldiers confident in the talents
of their general to intrench them in their new camp, secure
against every charge of the enemy. Mr. Flam lost no time
in providing us with the Secretary's report of February 27th,
1838. Mr. Woodbury did not deceive our hopes. This
lummous paper carried demonstration on its wings and refutation
in its footsteps. Prodigious man! Enormous functionary!
Brightest of ministers! Samson of the New
Lights! Aaron and Moses both in one, of our Democratic,
Quodlibetarian, Golden-calf worshipping Israelites (I speak
symbolically, and not in derogation of the anxiously-looked-for
and long-desired Bentonian coin). He but touched the
rock of New Light faith, and forth gushed the facts like

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water—yea, and arguments like milk and water. With
what gratulation did we read—

“The loss to the Treasury by taking depreciated notes, in
1814, '15, '16, and '17, is estimated at quite five millions five
hundred thousand dollars; and there is now on hand of such
notes then received and never paid away, or collected, about
eighty thousand dollars more.”

There was a conclusive argument to all that the Whigs
might have urged in favor of the safety of State Banks, if
they had thought proper to defend them; and, in truth, it was
some little mortification to us that our adversaries did not
come out in favor of the banks, when we were so well provided
with facts to put them down. But they, with that
remarkable obstinacy which has ever characterised them
and which is altogether behind the age, stuck to their old
opinions and left us without any thing to controvert, except,
indeed, our own facts of 1834.

This instance, however, serves to show with what majestic
bounds the New Lights have passed over the broad
field of measures, and with what facile and graceful dexterity
they have refuted that antiquated and vulgar adage
which stigmatises facts as stubborn things. Thus the
beauty of this unrivalled philosophy consists in the harmony
with which it reconciles past times with the present, with
which it dovetails discordant principles, with which it brings
into brotherhood elements the most repulsive, facts the
most antagonistical, men the most variant, and contingencies
the most impossible; which converts every man into
a Janus, every highway into a labyrinth, every beacon into
a lighthouse—giving to falsehood the value of truth, to
shadow the usefulness of substance, and to concealment the
estimation of candor. Truly is it the great discovery of
modern times! My reader, I trust, will not, now that I

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have opened his understanding to the perception of this sublime
spell-working philosophy, allow himself henceforth to
question the laudable sentiment of approbation with which I
have developed the practical operation of this theory in the
history of Quodlibet.

There was another matter worthy of remark in the events
of the year, which I must cursorily notice before I proceed
to the era with which I propose presently to occupy my
readers. The Presidential election was now in view, and
received that grave consideration from the members of Congress
which they are in the habit of giving to every thing
in Washington except the trifling business of making laws.
Our diligent and watchful representatives, some time before
the close of the short session, wrote to our club a letter full of
important advice for our guidance in the affairs of the
approaching canvass for the Presidency.

Amongst other valuable disclosures, “The Whigs,” said
he, “are to hold a Convention at Harrisburg. Harry
Clay, or, as they term him, Harry of the West, is to be
their man;—at least, so we suspect. Whoever he be, we
have made up our minds as to our course—he is to be run
down in the South as an abolitionist. Abolition is the
best hobby we have had since the death of the Monster.
We have already broken ground; and if Kendall and Blair
can't prove Clay or any body else to be an abolitionist, the
d—l's in it: their right hand will have forgotten its cunning.
The Globe is full of the matter already. Tell Eliphalet
Fox to begin at once and bark in the same key:—all the
little dogs are expected to yelp after the old hound—or as
Pickens calls him, the Galvanised Corpse: many of them
are at it lustily now. In 1836, Van's principles were
luckily northern;—so we have resolved to let them have full
swing beyond the Potomac, and to put him in masquerade
for the South. We rely implicitly on the stolidity of

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Pennsylvania: and shall secure New York by a concession
to her Banks, which for the time we mean to treat amiably.
Our chief aim is the South: we have made the nullifier a
captain, and he is willing now to swallow the Proclamation,
the corruptions, and Blair, without even a wry face. This
Great Girouette has become so loose on his pivot, that after a
few more gyrations, he will be twisted off the rod, and we
shall have no further trouble with him. Van, in the meantime,
being thoroughly imbued with the New Light Quodlibetarian
democracy, has consented for the benefit of our
cause south of Potomac, to be dubbed, “The Northern man
with Southern principles”—remember that, and tell Fox to
ring the changes on it in every paper. We have hired a
New Hampshire man to play clown to Van; and he somersets
when his master does. This has a most striking effect.
We call him the mannikin of the North, with Southern
principles—Van's mignonette. Our contract required him
to bring in the anti-abolition resolutions touching the petitions;
and although he could not venture against the reception,
he has bolted down all the rest, totidem verbis et
syllabis, as we wrote them for him;—the reception we
struck out to accommodate the democratic abolitionism of
his district. The effect of this coup d'etat was magical;
and having gagged Wise and the rest of the Whigs with
the Previous Question, we have left them in a state of unnatural
retention which threatens to prove fatal. If is
universally considered here a most lucky hit—Van and the
Mannikin; and we shall, with these performers, play “The
Northern Man with Southern principles,” to crowded
houses. Keep it going!—and don't forget, Clay is an abolitionist.
If the Harrisburg convention nominates any body
else—the same paragraphs will suit him;—Mutato nomine
de te fabula narretur. Get the secretary to translate that.
Be discreet, and show this letter only to the faithful.”

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It may be readily imagined that our Club was thrown
into ecstacy by this confidential missive. Being the custodiary
of the letter, I have ventured, without the permission
of the Club, to incorporate it in these annals; taking upon
myself the risk of their displeasure rather than withhold so
fine a specimen of the New Light Quodlibetarian democracy;—
and indeed I can see no reason why the world shouldn't
have it. We have no secrets amongst the New Lights.

I proceed now to the Fourth Era in these annals.

p239-208

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