premium of two or three per cent. for a bill of exchange at sight to discharge a debt in New York, or to enable him to purchase goods. "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." (Constitution, Art. I., Sec. 8, 1.) How can they be uniform, unless payable in or by an article of invariable value throughout the Union? Wheat, tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar, coffee, pork, potatoes, would not answer. Neither would gold or silver. These, like other commodities, are worth more or less at different points, or in different markets. Paper alone will meet the exigency-a paper everywhere current; and which costs nothing to send it from one city or town to another, however remote. Such was the character of United States Bank paper. The Congress shall have power-"To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin," * * * Constitution, Art. I., Sec. 8, 5.) How is the value of coin to be fixed or regulated, except by some rule, measure or standard-like paper? Nor is it of any consequence quoad hoc whether the paper be above, or below, or equal to par, as it is called. It is itself a fixed, invariable quantity. Gold and silver, corn and iron, may vary in reference to it: but it changes not. It would be uniform throughout the Union. People, paying in this paper, would everywhere pay the same value-and no mistake. The constitution, then, makes it the impera tive duty of the government to create a bank, or to issue a paper currency of some sort. Moreover, a paper currency has this decided advantage over every other circulating medium, especially over gold and silver, namely: that any amount, greater or less, may be lost, burnt, buried in the ocean or in the Mississippi, without any loss to the State or nation or public or government. Even if the destruction of a bank bill should prove a total loss to the owner, it will be a gain to the bank. Whereas the loss of gold or silver is a loss to both the owner and the public. hilation of value. All lose: none gain. It is the anni- or destruction ters might be so contrived, that the loss of a bank or treasury note, or of a paper title of any sort, should not injure any party. Just as the loss of a promissory note or bond, or of a title deed to land, may not of necessity involve the utter loss of either debt or land. The Book of Record will serve as evidence in either and in all cases. Highway robbery has been greatly diminished by the general use of paper money. Men seldom travel with large sums of gold and silver, as formerly they were accustomed to do. Coin is daily growing lighter by use-i.e. by frictionby ordinary wear and tear. It is liable to injury from clipping, counterfeiting and various modes of debasement. The practice too of sweating gold;—that is, by certain chemical applications, taking away some fifteen or twenty-five per cent. of the metal, and leaving the general appearance of the coin the same as before;-has become quite common, both in Europe and in this coun try. It has already deteriorated the English gold circulation to such an extent as to render it necessary to call in the whole mass for recoinage at the mint, (1842.) [Note also the galvanic process of coating, or covering, or plating, or gilding the baser metals with gold so as to deceive the most cautious. Government Paper. Suppose we cannot get a national bank: may we not have a national paper currency? Certainly we may. First. Instead of paying gold and silver from the treasury, [when they happen to be in it,] notes, prepared like bank bills, payable to bearer, might be issued. These would be the precise sign or representative of the specie on hand-nothing more. No addition would thereby be made to the amount of the current money or of the national capital. Still, many of the advantages already specified might result from this mere substitution of paper for specie. It would be of uniform and invariable value everywhere-could be transmitted without cost, etc. Second. A national debt, (whenever so unfortunate as to have one,) to the amount of twenty or thirty millions of dollars, might be put into the form of government or treasury notes of all sizes, like bank notes; and thus be paid out and circulated as money among the people. This would be a clear addition to the currency, above the actual specie in the market; and might possibly prove a public benefit. It would be equally valuable, so long as received by the government in payment of all dues, and while properly limited in amount. It would facilitate exchanges. The paper could be used in lieu of commercial drafts; and the expense of remittances would scarcely exceed the postage. NOTES. 1. Great Expense of Banks.-The excessive multiplication of banks by the States is a grievous burden upon the people, on the score of expense alone-even were they ably managed. There are in Tennessee about twenty banks-principals and branches-with from five to ten salaried officers each; besides from seven to fifteen directors. Allowing to each bank six executive officers, we have one hundred and twenty persons employed, at an average salary, say of $1000, or a total of $120,000 per annum, to superintend a bad currency. Then twenty banking houses at a rent charge of $1000, or $20,000 a year for the whole. Then insurances, contingencies, losses. by bad debts and rogueries of all sorts, may reach to any indefinitely large sum. But set these down at only $60,000 a year. We then have a total annual tax or charge of $200,000 imposed on the good people of Tennessee, in order to be furnished with a very poor substitute for United States Bank paper. There are some 900 or 1000 similar banks in the United States, which, at the same rates as the above, cost the nation nine or ten millions annually. In like manner, there are not fewer probably than five or six thousand salaried officers, and from ten to twenty thousand directors. Reasonable scope here for peculation, political patronage, favouritism, intrigue and genteel idleness! 2. From a mere reading of the constitution, one might infer that the federal government alone had the right to charter banks. That the States retained no right whatever to meddle with the currency, or to emit paper money or "bills of credit," in any form, or under any guise. This would be a legitimate inference or construction, were it not that several State banks existed at the time when the Convention framed the constitution, viz. :— (1.) The Bank of North America, (then a Pennsylvania bank,) instituted in 1781. (2.) Massachusetts Bank, at Boston, 1784. (3.) Bank of New York, at New York, 1784. 3. The States could not reserve to themselves the sole right of creating a national banking corporation, or a bank which could furnish a uniform currency throughout the Union, because they never possessed either the right or the power. They could not do it, if they would. 4. A National Currency.-"The indispensable elements of a na tional currency must combine: 1. Uniformity; 2. Safety; 3. Convenience; 4. Convertibility; 5. And entire public confidence. Invariability of value is the great desideratum of currency. So great is the advantage of a paper currency over a metallic, that its tendency is rather to increase than diminish in value, when the basis is perfectly secure; and no greater security can possibly be given, than the plighted faith of the government, to whose hands are confided the fortunes, lives and honour of the people. This is the highest of all possible human security." (Madisonian, 1841. The official organ of Tyler's administration.) 5. Are banks monopolies? If so, who created them? Who is responsible for their doings? Who culpable, etc.? 6. Are bank charters contracts? If so, ought they not to be fulfilled in good faith; even when they prove bad bargains to the people who made them? |