were thousands of surly malcontents who grumbled without ceasing and threatened unsparingly; but she, too, was not allured into seeking peace and prosperity by the practical confiscation of credits. New Hampshire, Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland likewise resisted, though in each was a powerful party eagerly working for paper.

The cheap-money faction in Virginia was strong and persistent; but fortunately the state contained a body of capable men who were not afraid to enter the conflict and to call things by their right names. One of the noteworthy points of Virginia politics was the fact that the best men had from the beginning been leaders, had taken part in political controversy, and were not accustomed weakly to yield obedience to the shouts of an uneasy mob. When in 1775 men like Thomas Hutchinson were driven from Massachusetts and the other colonies, the sober men of property in Virginia were the leaders of the populace. 1 In 1786 the head of the conservatives in the Virginia legislature was Madison. He was at his best in discussing a subject like this, which did not require great knowledge of finance or of practical business, but did need a clear mind, a sound conscience, a patriotic spirit, and an ability to see the relations between legislation and morality. At no time in his career, perhaps, did Madison do more valiant or more valuable service for his country than in these trying days of the Confederation when there were so many social and political perils

on every hand. He was able, industrious, and full of confidence, one of that company of young men to whom the upheaval of the Revolution had given opportunity, and who did so much for establishing the Union and setting her feet on the way to prosperity. His delicate perceptions, his scholarly tastes, his historical and legal knowledge, his simple appreciation of right, his sense of justice, were now devoted to the interests of his country. He did not hesitate to declare that the issuing of paper money was pernicious, that it sowed dissensions among the states, destroyed confidence between individuals, discouraged commerce, enriched sharpers, vitiated morals, reversed the end of government, which is to reward the best and punish the worst, " and that if Virginia followed the example of other states in adopting paper, she would help to disgrace republican government in the eyes of mankind. Virginia, to her honor, announced by her house of delegates that an emission of paper money would be "unjust, impolitic, destructive of public and private confidence, and of that virtue which is the basis of Republican Government.'

In a plan allowing the taxes of the year to be paid in tobacco, or, more properly in “inspectors receipts or notes for good merchantable crop tobacco,' "2 Madison reluctantly acquiesced, for fear that "some greater evil under the name of relief 1 Madison, Writings (Hunt's ed.), II., 277, 281. "Hening, Statutes, XII., 258.

His yield

to the people would be substituted."1 ing was, perhaps, a characteristic piece of weakness, but it should be noticed that the plan of having government warehouses was one of long standing, that tobacco receipts or "promissory notes" had not uncommonly circulated as money within a limited area in the colony, and that, in fact, this great, fragrant crop had in great measure played the rôle of gold and silver in the financial history of the colony. The plan of issuing receipts that in fact constituted money was not so very different from the system in force in the latter part of the nineteenth century, whereby "silver certificates" were given out as receipts for a deposit of bullion."

Even in New Hampshire, where the sound-money party finally won a decisive victory, and where there was on the whole a peaceful and law-abiding spirit, there were days of distress and anxiety. The state was heavily in debt, was almost hopelessly behind in its payments to the federal treasury, and was not entirely recovered from the past demoralization of its currency. The air was filled with complaints of the discontented, with grumblings over taxes, and with denunciation of courts and lawyers." "Your Supplicants have great cause to Mourn," declared one petitioning town, "when by Reading and Information they are Convinced of the happiness,

1 Madison, Writings (Hunt's ed.), II., 301. 'Ripley, Finan. Hist. of Virginia (Columbia College Studies, IV.), 150. Belknap, Hist. of N. H., II., 457 et seq.

those People enjoy. . . Whose Legislative Bodies have emitted a Paper Currency." But when the people considered "the immense Treasures” expended in the war, "the hosts of their beloved fellow Citizens" that had fallen, "the rivers of human blood with which the earth" was "wantonly crimsoned," and when they reflected that though the "din of war was no more heard, they could not find the “golden prize—the dear earned promised happy day," then they were disconsolate indeed. Instead of the "blessings of peace," though they sought them "diligently with tears," they found misery; they were in a “labyrinth of difficulty and distress, like Issachar of old crouching under the weight of complicated burdens."1

In September of 1786 an armed mob some hundreds strong, demanding paper money, asking for distribution of property, and clamoring against government, surrounded the meeting-house in Exeter, where the legislature was in session, and threatened to hold the lawmakers prisoners till their demands were complied with. Fortunately the citizens of Exeter and the neighborhood were not in a mood to sympathize with rioting. The mob, first frightened by stratagem into retreat, was the next day dispersed by a band of citizens and militia.2 Thus

1 Town Papers of N. H., XI., 122, 123, 488.

2 Bell, Hist. of Exeter, 96; Historical Mag., 2d series, V., 37; "An Account of the Insurrection in the State of New - Hampshire-Written by a Gentleman who happened to be present," in Boston Mag., III., 401–404.

the state was saved from disgrace if not from humiliation. Even before the insurrection the legislature had determined to submit a paper-money measure to the towns of the state for their approval. In spite of the clamor of those who pointed to the Elysian fields" in other states as "contrasted with the bondage" of New Hampshire,1 good sense prevailed; the measure was emphatically rejected by the people."

The conservative party, therefore, in the end was safely victorious, but the mob that disturbed the peace of placid little Exeter was but illustrative of the dangers of the time. There was inflammable material in every state. The hoarse laments of the unhappy, who wished for the promised days of plenty and complained that gold and silver had "taken wings and flown to the other side of the Atlantic," who demanded that ease and prosperity be brought to each man's door by legislative enactment, were heard not alone in the grumbling townmeetings of New Hampshire.

Under the sway of the paper-money party seven states entered on the difficult task of legislating their people into financial blessedness by the simple means of making money, a task which many seemed to believe was the most useful employment of popular government. Of all the states, Rhode Island, with a talent for the dramatic, adopted the

1

1 Belknap, Hist. of N. H., II., 467, quoting New Hampshire Gazette, July 20, 1786. Early State Papers of N. H., XX., 772.