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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 285.: COMMERCIAL CRISIS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA GUIDE, 29 APR., 1837, PP. 13-14 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIV - Newspaper Writings January 1835 - June 1847 Part III

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

285.: COMMERCIAL CRISIS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA GUIDE, 29 APR., 1837, PP. 13-14 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIV - Newspaper Writings January 1835 - June 1847 Part III [1835]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIV - Newspaper Writings January 1835 - June 1847 Part III, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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285.

COMMERCIAL CRISIS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

GUIDE, 29 APR., 1837, PP. 13-14

The American “Panic of 1837” in March, preceded by inflation, credit expansion, and wild speculation in public lands, was marked by bank failures and refusal to convert notes into specie. Nine States defaulted on interest due on European debts. This is apparently the only original article contributed by Mill to the Guide, founded on 22 Apr. by his friend Henry Cole (1808-82). It appeared in “Commercial & Housekeeper’s Guide,” a regular feature. The article is not listed in Mill’s bibliography, but in Cole’s file copy in the Victoria and Albert Museum he has written “J. Mill” at the head, as he has above an extract (in the Guide, 18 June, 1837, p. 68) from a review of Carlyle’s FrenchRevolution, which Mill had already written for the July number of the London and Westminster (CW, Vol. XX, pp. 131-66; the extract is from pp. 134-6).

the recent intelligence from america has caused a most salutary revolution in the state of commercial confidence, and justifies us in saying that the most critical period of the mercantile pressure has now past.1 It was feared that when the difficulties of the American houses in England became known in America, and produced their natural consequences, in a crash among the mercantile houses of the United States, those houses would satisfy their American engagements first, and their English creditors when they could. Dependent as our American houses were for the fulfilment of their engagements here, upon a speedy repayment of some portion of their advances to America, such conduct, on the part of their American correspondents, would have compelled nearly the whole of them to stop payment; and how far the ruin which this would have spread through the trading communities of England might have extended, or where it might have terminated, no one could venture to divine.

All this evil has been averted by the spirited conduct of the Bank of the United States, who, by stepping forward as the saviours of the commercial credit of their country, will have far more than re-established all the popularity of which General Jackson’s determined hostility can have deprived them.2 They immediately lent their credit to the merchants, to the extent of two millions of dollars; and granted bills to that amount to enable them to pay their debts, and specie to meet those bills is now on its way to this country. The other Banks emulated their example; and, as the engagements of the leading Banks of the United States are equal in security to cash, and bear a far higher interest than can be obtained for cash anywhere but in America, the merchants of America have met, or are enabled to meet, all their engagements here; and the pressure upon our mercantile houses, trading with America, may be considered at an end.

[1 ]For news that the crisis was passing, see “American Affairs,” The Times, 24 Apr., 1837, p. 3, and a leading article on the subject, ibid., p. 4.

[2 ]Jackson had refused to renew the Bank’s charter in 1832, and in 1833 had transferred federal funds to local banks.