All the presidents before Van Buren had been of British descent, and
they had all been born when the States were still British colonies.
Van Buren was Dutch, and he had been born after the Revolution was
complete.
This was not a happy time for America, for the whole country began
to suffer from money troubles. One reason for this was that people
had been trying to get rich too fast. They had been spending more
than they had in order to make still more. Great factories were
begun and never finished, railroads and canals were built which
did not pay. Business after business failed, bank after bank shut
its doors, and then to add to the troubles there was a bad harvest.
Flour became ruinously dear, and the poor could not get enough to
eat.
The people blamed the Government for these bad times. Deputation
after deputation went to the President asking him to do something,
railing at him as the cause of all their troubles.
But amid all the clamour Van Buren stood calm. "This was not a
matter," he said, "in which the Government ought to interfere. It
was a matter for the people themselves," and he bade them to be
more careful and industrious and things would soon come right.
But the Government too had suffered, for government money had been
deposited in some of the banks which had failed. And in order to
prevent that in the future Van Buren now proposed a plan for keeping
State money out of the banks, so that the State should not be hurt
by any bank failing.
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