speculation became active, interest advanced. The "poor men" found themselves forced to submit to more and more ruinous renewals, all the heavier because of the usury law, until they lost all they had ever really owned. The question, then, is how much better off than they were would the poor men of 1830 have been in 1845 if they had gone on slowly earning and saving capital and making no use of credit at all. As it was, the poor men of 1830, after supposing themselves rich in 1836, were all bankrupt in 1845. Such is the course of every inflation of the currency. It is proved by hundreds of instances; and there is no delusion which it seems so hard to stamp out of the minds of men as this, that in business we can make something out of nothing, although we cannot in chemistry or mechanics. Nothing more surely tempts the man without capital to his ruin than the easy credit which accompanies the first stages of inflation.
It is worth while also to reflect for a moment on the results of the two plans for dealing with the crisis: the New York plan and the Philadelphia plan. When an error has been committed in this world, we always have to bear the penalty for it. If we do not like the stripes on one side we can turn and take them on the other, but when nature inflicts penalties for her broken laws we never can squirm out of the way. In this case, then, when the folly had been perpetrated the punishment had to be suffered. The only choice was whether to take it quick and heavy, or light and long. The New Yorkers chose the former way. The contraction was severe and painful while it lasted, but it was soon over. From May, 1838, the New York banks resumed and held on without further default and the New York business recovered and entered upon a new course of growth from that time. The Philadelphians took the other course. They made it easy for the debtors and waited for the storm to blow over. The consequence was that the
