several had led to engagements for future expenditures. In other words, some of the states, having received some money from the federal treasury, had run into debt in anticipation of more. The proposition not to distribute the fourth installment, therefore, called forth a great clamor. It was denounced as a breach of contract and an act of robbery, and the demand was made in all seriousness that, if the government had not the money to be distributed as a surplus, it was bound to borrow the required amount by way of a loan. All these outcries found voice in Congress. The bill to withhold the fourth installment finally passed; but the bulk of the Whig vote, including the names of Clay, Webster, Bayard, Crittenden, Clayton, Preston, and Southard, stand recorded against it. The bill passed with an amendment by which the power of recalling from the several states the distributed “deposits” was transferred from the Secretary of the Treasury to Congress, which was equivalent to an assurance that they would never be recalled. In fact, they have remained on the books of the Treasury down to our days as “unavailable funds.” If ever a similar measure should be proposed again, the history of the moral and economic effects produced by the distribution of the treasury surplus in 1837, in the states which received the money, as well as throughout the general business community, may well be studied as a warning example.
The administration party then offered a bill to
