Many people make a lot of money in war. In WWII we know that Prescott Bush was involved with Brown Bros. Harriman in a trading with the enemy lawsuit. The Bush family is not even close to the top of this food chain that includes agents like the Rockefellers and the likes of Chase Manhattan Bank which I dealt with in my book on Custer, Keogh and Lincolns Assassination through Samuel Chase. That was the Civil War and I am now addressing the War of 1812. I find the same families show up over and over again however. The funny thing is we have a group called the Peace Faction that seemed against the war and yet the result from their efforts put more money in the hands of these bankers that are now called the Beacon Hill Mob and include such upstanding people as the group known as The Pilgrims. There is so much intrigue it is hard to wade through it all and I am sure some readers will not choose to check into it all. I certainly cannot lay it all before you in any one book. From the beginning of the war the government was compelled to ask for loans, and the Peace Faction made such persistent opposition, for the purpose of embarrassing the administration, that in every case a bonus was paid for all sums borrowed. In January, 1813, a loan of $16,000,000 was authorized. It was obtained principally from individuals at the rate of $88 for a certificate of stock for $100, by which lenders received $2,100,377 as a bonus on that small loan. In August the same year a further loan of $7,500,000 was authorized; and in March, 1814, a loan of $25,000,000 was authorized. This was the darkest hour of the war, and then it was that the Peace Faction at political meetings, through the press, and even from the pulpit, cast every obstacle in the way of the government. That opposition now assumed the form of virtual treason. The government was weak and in great need, and its internal enemies knew it, and in proportion to its wants they became bolder and more outspoken. Their denunciations of the government, and those who dared to lend it a helping hand, were violent and effective. By inflammatory and threatening publications and personal menaces, they intimidated many capitalists. 2 The result was, that only $11,400,000 of the proposed loan were raised in the spring of 1814, and this by paying a bonus of $2,852,000, terms so disastrous that only one more attempt was made to borrow money during the war, the deficiency being made up by the issue of treasury notes to the amount of $18,452,000. Over this failure of the government these unpatriotic men rejoiced. One of them, writing from Boston in February, 1815, said, exultingly, This day $20,000 six per cent stock was put up at auction, $5000 of which only was sold for want of bidders, and that at forty per cent, under par. As for the former war loan, it would be considered little short of an insult to offer it in the market, it being a very serious question who is to father the child in case of national difficulties. The last expression referred to the hopes of the conspirators that a dissolution of the Union would be brought about by the body known in history as the Hartford Convention, which had adjourned, to meet again if necessary a body of men inspired by motives and actions too lofty to be comprehended by the vulgar politicians who were the leaders of the Peace Faction of that day. (12) |
