From this influence they can not now entirely escape, for it has its
origin in the credit currencies of the two countries; it is strengthened
by the current of trade and exchange which centers in London, and is
rendered almost irresistible by the large debts contracted there by our
merchants, our banks, and our States. It is thus that an introduction of
a new bank into the most distant of our villages places the business of
that village within the influence of the money power in England; it is
thus that every new debt which we contract in that country seriously
affects our own currency and extends over the pursuits of our citizens
its powerful influence. We can not escape from this by making new banks,
great or small, State or national. The same chains which bind those
now existing to the center of this system of paper credit must equally
fetter every similar institution we create. It is only by the extent to
which this system has been pushed of late that we have been made fully
aware of its irresistible tendency to subject our own banks and
currency to a vast controlling power in a foreign land, and it adds
a new argument to those which illustrate their precarious situation.
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