After all these overt manifestations of [conservatives'] total desertion to the Whig cause, it is evident that Conservatism is at an end--except in so far as the name is applicable in its true English sense, of hostility to all popular and liberal reform……

This is, we repeat, a period of the breaking up and reorganization of parties on their true natural grounds,—one of those convulsions which sweep away all other landmarks of party habits but the fixed rocks of original principle. It is seen in the transfer of that portion of the democratic party whose Republicanism was but the name under which they have long enjoyed the advantages of political ascendancy, to their natural position within the ranks of the old Federal and Bank party [i.e., the Whigs]; while, on the other hand, a considerable number of the Whigs—a large portion of whom are but democrats thrown accidentally and unconsciously into a false position—are coming over to the support of those principles of which no party prejudices nor clamors can prevent their recognizing the wisdom, truth, and patriotism [of the Democratic party.] It is a good exchange, and contains reason for rejoicing—equally for each such departure and such accession….

The question [between Whigs and Democrats] is, Bank or Constitution—an independent government of the people, on the acknowledged principles of the Constitution, or a final submission, once for all, of the neck of our young free nation to the yoke of bank dominion. The language of the [Democratic] Administration [to the supporters of a National Bank, with whom the Whig party was affiliated] is this:

‘Let us part. In both forms the experiment of our union has been twice fully tested. And both it has failed. I seek not to injure you,—let me alone. You are beyond the sphere of my legitimate action. Remain within the proper commercial limits of yours. I would confine myself to my proper federal duties according to the clear letter and spirit of the Constitution under which I exist. Support yourselves by your own sound credit and merits, based on your capital, prudence, and good faith. Do not seek to rest artificially upon mine. I leave you to yourselves and to your own States by whom you are created and supported. There can never hereafter possibly be peace or harmony for either of us in a renewal of this union [between the government and the banks]. The Democratic party has staked itself on the great principle of the Divorce [between commerce and the State], and, whether immediately victorious or defeated, will never abandon it…Do you withdraw from the political arena, and return to your proper commercial duties. I seek not to injure you,——least of all to injure sound and healthy credit and business. None but the unsound and insolvent among you can have any fair reason to object to my determination to be independent, and to maintain a secure, uniform, and constitutional fiscal system, in the discharge of my limited federal duties; by keeping and disbursing my own revenue; and by confining myself to that only fixed standard of value which is “the law of the land at home and the law of the world abroad,” and to which you acknowledge it to be your own highest duty to conform your own paper emissions—— though the misfortune, from which I desire to be hereafter exempt, is that you are perpetually wandering far and wide from it.’

Such is the language of the [Democratic] Administration to the [Whig-supported] Banks. On the other hand what is theirs to the Government? ‘You shall not be independent of us. You shall not collect and disburse your revenue yourself. You shall not anchor the Treasury of the country by that obsolete and uncivilized ‘standard of value,’ of which we have nothing to say but that it is a humbug. Constitution or no Constitution, we will regulate the currency for you as for the rest of the people, and you shall have nothing to do with any other standard than our paper. If the people are content with it, what right have you to complain of it? We will not rest on our own capital, credit, and our commercial business alone,—you shall give us your credit and especial countenance also. And if you do not surrender at once at discretion, and submit to our dictation, without further impertinent discussions of the principles on which we are organized and conduct our business, we will sweep you out of power…’

Such are substantially the respective attitudes of the Administration and the banks. Which is to prevail?…But we are wrong in ascribing this language to the banks. It is to a reckless body of ambitious [Whig] politicians that it ought rather to be attributed,—who are moving heaven and hell to overthrow the Administration, to place themselves in the seat of power. They were defeated on the ground of a National Bank on which they before made the same attempt…they take the whole system, with all its evils and abuses, to their arms, endorsing and defending every thing; and falsely charge the Administration with a design to destroy it, and with a general hostility to credit and commerce….They do not conceal, though they attempt to keep for the present in the background, a design of reestablishing a great National Bank if ever they can get the power entrusted to their hands,—an institution which shall constitute an absolute moneyed despotism over the State banks as over the whole country, its laws, its liberties, its property, and its government,—which shall have the power, as the late one once boasted, to crush any of the lesser banks at pleasure,— which shall have the use of the public revenue, and a preference over all the others in the receivability of its paper,—which shall have a monopoly of the business of exchanges, and the power of working the machinery of the currency at pleasure, as its central and controlling main-spring. The question is…between the [Democrats], on the one hand, and the Federal party [the Whigs] and National Bank, on the other.