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Page 52
In the consideration of the banking and currency questions of the day
and of the last and present century, it is desirable to have thus
brought together in a single work, a continuous history of the
institution which has had so large an influence upon the public
interests of Europe, and a review of the important circumstances which
marked the progress of the bank in its successful efforts to sustain
England against foreign enemies and domestic revulsions, an index to the
speculative movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when
commerce, trade, and the vast monetary interests of Europe and America
have been unnecessarily and cruelly involved.
The letter addressed by Secretary Chase, of the Treasury Department, to
the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of
Representatives, and to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance,
under date June 7th, 1862, suggested the power by Congress to the
treasury to issue $150,000,000 in treasury notes, in addition to this
sum, authorized by the act of February 25th, 1862; also, authority to
receive fifty millions of dollars on deposit, in addition to fifty
millions previously authorized by Congress. These suggestions were
favorably considered in both Houses, and the recommendations of the
Secretary were adopted fully, leading to the adoption of a national
system of finance, which will eventually re�stablish and preserve
national credit. Fears have been expressed in some quarters that this
increased volume of paper money would be a public evil, and serve to
disturb the value of property and the price of labor. This might be
reasonably anticipated if the country were at peace, and the Government
expenditures were upon a peace footing.
But a state of things exists now in this country hitherto unknown. The
contracts of the Government involve the expenditure of larger sums than
were ever paid before in the same space of time by this or any other
Government. In the disbursements of these large sums it is an obvious
duty of Congress to provide a national circulation of uniform value
throughout the whole country--a circulation of a perfectly reliable
character, not subject in the least to the ordinary vicissitudes of
trade or to the revulsions which have frequently marked our history.
These revulsions have been witnessed, and their results seen by the
leading public men of the century. Mr. Madison saw at an early day the
importance of creating and sustaining a government circulation. His
language was: 'It is essential to every modification of the finances
that the benefits of an uniform national currency should be restored to
the community.'
Mr. Calhoun, in 1816, said: 'By a sort of undercurrent, the power of
Congress to regulate the money of the country has caved in, and upon its
ruin have sprung up those institutions which now exercise the right of
making money in and for the United States.'
'It is the duty of government,' says a well known writer, 'to interfere
to regulate every business or pursuit that might otherwise become
publicly injurious. On this principle it interferes to prevent the
circulation of spurious coin.' Counterfeit coin is more readily detected
than a fictitious paper currency, yet no sane man would advocate the
repeal of the laws which prohibit it. Why, then, permit the unlimited
manufacture of paper money of an unreliable character?
In the consideration of this subject we should divest ourselves of all
selfish views of private profit and advantage. We should look only to
the public good, to stability in trade and commerce, and to the general
interests of the people at large as distinguished from those of a few
individuals. It is clearly then the province of government to establish
and to regulate the paper money of the nation, so that it shall possess
the following attributes:
I. To be uniform in value throughout all portions of the country.
II. To be perfectly reliable at all times as a medium for the payment of
debts.
III. To be issued in limited amounts, and under the control of the
Government only.
IV. To be convertible, at the pleasure of the holder, into gold or
silver.
It must be conceded that these requisites do not belong, and never can
belong, to paper issued by joint stock banks, which are governed with a
view to the largest profit, and which are but little known beyond their
own immediate localities.
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