OUR 
 
 A Mirror in which " Trees can be seen as Men Walking," 
 
 I have not approved, and do not no^ approve, of the financial poUcy pursued hy our Government for 
 the last six years. I think "we have thrown away our billions, and are still throwing away our millions, by 
 mismanagement.— Hon. Thad. Stevens. 
 
 BY S. P. TOWNSEND. 
 
 KEW YORK : 
 MACDONALD & SWA]^^K, PKINTERS, 37 PARK ROW. 
 
 1 86 8. 
 
 FLENSE READ AjSTD C I R C TJ L A T E . 
 
 NATIONAL FINANCES.! 
 
 ^ 
 
 I spoke in the interest of the Republican party, to which I look for the future of the country, for whatever ij 
 party shall take upon itself the burden of this unjust taxation, this financial system by which the "rich are 
 made richer and the poor poorer," will surely be overthrown, and after that comes the deluge.— G-en. Butler. 
 
x»iiese:vteo to tite 
 
 Minnesota ^istorkal ^otwtg, 
 
OUR NATIONAL FINANCES, 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS: 
 
 INTRODUCTION AND EXPLANATION. 
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE REPUBLICANS AT THE STATE ELECTIONS, Etc, Etc. 
 
 PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S MESSAGE ON THE FINANCES. 
 
 THE REPORT oF THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, Etc. 
 
 THE REPORT OF MR. WELLS, SPECIAL COMMISSIONER OF THE REVENUE, 
 MR. SPINNER'S LETTER, Etc. 
 
 IMMEDIATE RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS, THE COTTON TAX, THE 
 "NIGGERS," LONG BONDS, HON. THAD. STEVENS, B. F. BUTLER, Etc. 
 
 THE REPORT OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, DECLINE OF SHIP BUILD- 
 ING, Etc. a Rich Chapter. 
 
 THE OHIO STATESMAN: WHAT IS MONEY? 
 
 AN OLD FALSEHOOD EXPOSED. 
 
 THE NATIONAL BANKS. 
 
 A FALSE ACCUSATION. 
 
 THE SITUATION OF THE SOUTHERN STATES. 
 
 INCONSISTENCIES OF MERCHANTS, FARMERS, MECHANICS ; THE INSOLENCE 
 OF CAPITALISTS ; THE HON. MR. SPAULDING'S LETTER TO 
 GOV. MORGAN; WHAT'S COMING, Etc. 
 
 USURY THE CURSE OF CIVILIZATION; THE PRICE OF MONEY; DESCRIPTION 
 OF CAPITALISTS— ASTOR, STEWART, VANDERBILT, DREW; 
 GEN. GRANT ; THE SENATE, CONGRESS, Etc., Etc. 
 
 BY S. P. TOWNSEND. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 J" -A- IT xj -A. ^ lo, ises. 
 
 Dye / o?^>'2^ So^ 
 
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
INTEODUOTION AND EXPLANATION. 
 
 OuE first object in publishing this Pamphlet is to demonstrate that it 
 is the imperative duty of Congress to reduce the rate of interest on money ; 
 to show that it is feasible and practicable; that justice^ and economy de- 
 mand it ; that it can be accomplished and be of incalculable benefit to 
 the masses, lessening the public burdens, and enormously increasing the 
 industry and wealth of the country. 
 
 That the requirements and genius of our free institutions demand our 
 statesmen to ignore the financial policy and theories adopted by the mo- 
 narchical governments ; that these systems are no better suited for a free 
 people than their forms of government, which are oppressive, subverting 
 the liberties, tlie rights and property of the people. 
 
 We wish to show that the President and the Secretary of the Treasury 
 are using the money in the Treasury, or rather have been destroying it, 
 for the purpose of destroying the prosperity of the people, and conse- 
 quently the Republican party. 
 
 Congress authorized the Secretary, at his urgent request, to have the 
 power to fund the Treasury notes and contract the currency. They granted 
 the power, but restricted him to ten millions of dollars the first six months, 
 and four millions of dollars per month after the expiration of six months. 
 How did he use that authority? Within twenty-one months he redeemed 
 of compound and legal-tender Treasury notes one hundred and fifty mil- 
 lion of dollars^ which cost the merchants and producers at least one thou- 
 sand millions of money in the reduction of business and prices. And in 
 the three months previoits to the election he reduced the currency $43,- 
 473,506, or over fourteen millions per month. The sudden curtailment of 
 this immense amount, and the cry for contraction and resumption of spe- 
 cie payments made by leading Pepublicans — with factories closing and 
 wails of distress coming from all parts of the Union ; with hundreds of 
 thousands of men in New York and Xew Jersey out of employment, and 
 the price of wool in Ohio reduced from seventy-five cents and one dollar 
 to twenty and twenty-five cents per pound — was the cause of the apathy 
 and defeat of the Kepublican party at the late elections. 
 
 Congress has passed an anti-contraction bill ; but there is fifty-six 
 millions of dollars of compound interest Treasury notes to be retired 
 before the 16th of October, 1868. These notes are held by the banks as 
 
4 
 
 OUE NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 a portion of their reserve fund in place of legal-tender Treasury notes, 
 and, if not prevented, the Secretary of the Treasury will fund the entire 
 amount just before the coming Presidential election, and create another 
 panic for the benefit of his Democratic and secesh friends. The banks 
 being required by law to keep in their vaults a surplus of twenty-five 
 per cent, in compound interest or legal-tender Treasury notes, will be 
 obliged to replace those withdrawn by greenbacks ; and it will have the 
 same disastrous effect as it would to cancel and destroy fifty- six millions 
 of currency. 
 
 Then we shall have the Secretary playing the same diabolical game 
 that he has at the previous elections — of suddenly calling upon the banks 
 all over the country for the Government deposits, so as to derange, cripple 
 and destroy the finances and the Eepublican party, which is his chief aim 
 and business. Belmont and the European bankers, the bullionists and 
 bond-holders, will urge the President and Secretary to destroy the Gov- 
 ernment money and resume specie payment, to increase their hoards, and 
 they will willingly, to the best of their abilities, comply, knowing that 
 this is the most effective means of restoring the Democrats to power. 
 
 We shall show that it is the duty of our Hepublican Congress to in- 
 crease the circulation of Government money, in order to thwart the 
 schemes of Belmont, Johnson & Co., and propel and encourage trade, 
 industry and production. It is a shame and disgrace in a country like 
 ours to have a man or horse, a steam engine or mill, stand idle a single 
 moment for want of money to employ them, when the Government can 
 create it at pleasure, and which will purchase its own five per cent, gold 
 bonds at par, reducing its liabilities, and setting in motion all of the 
 activities and industries of a great, rich and prosperous nation ; accom- 
 plishing the treble miracle of decreasing the Government debt, reducing 
 the amount of taxes to be collected, and vastly augmenting the happiness 
 and wealth of the country. 
 
 We wish to show that the President and Secretary of the Treasury 
 deserve impeachment; more especially the latter, for slandering the peo- 
 ple, the money, the credit and the finances of the nation. That the Mes- 
 sage and the Peport of the Secretary are overflowing with false and per- 
 nicious statements, calculated to degrade the people and the Government. 
 
 The accusations that the people are idle and demoralized, and that our 
 trade and industries are paralyzed in consequence of "a redundant and 
 degraded currency," is a malicious slander. The charge that building 
 and improvements are suspended is a gross perversion of truth, and cal- 
 culated^ coming from the highest officers in the Government, to injure the 
 
INTRODUCTION AND EXPLANATION. 6 
 
 credit of our bonds, to underrate tlie intelligence and virtue of the peo- 
 ple, and liold them and our free institutions in such a light as to seriously 
 affect the credit of the nation. 
 
 We are compelled to believe that Messrs. Johnson, McCulloch & Co. 
 have adopted financial measures for the purpose of further impoverishing 
 the South, in order to create confusion, dissatisfaction and anarchy, and 
 to prevent reconstruction on any plan excepting the one proposed by the 
 destructionists ; and wo contend that the people of the Southern States, 
 both white and colored, considering the situation they were in at the close 
 of the Eebellion, and the limited means at their disposal, have been re- 
 markably peaceful, successful and industrious. 
 
 We shall endeavor to establish the fact that the men who declaim the 
 loudest for " economy " are the persons who are frantically urging meas- 
 ures upon Congress which, if adopted, will defraud the public and the 
 Government of thousands of millions of dollars. They charge the people 
 with extravagance and advocate the issue of long honds bearing excessive, 
 ruinous rates of usury, and which would consume the substance of the 
 country, or deposit it in their coffers, to be expended in foreign travel and 
 extravagant excesses. They talk of taxing " the luxuries," but do not 
 consider that five and six per cent, gold bearing bonds and incomes that 
 exceed $10,000 per annum are the greatest and most pernicious of all lux- 
 uries, and should be the most heavily taxed. 
 
 The issue of long honds^ we shall prove, if they call for a higher rate 
 of interest than three per cent, per annum, would be a crime of the great- 
 est magnitude, destructive of the people's rights and privileges, and would 
 destroy the Republican party, if not the nation, if the party are so un- 
 wise or thoughtless as to adopt so deadly a policy. 
 
 We shall endeavor to prove that our Treasury notes are real honafide 
 dollars — bills of credit " issued in conformity to the very letter of the 
 Constitution, and are the valid and legal currency of the country, and 
 should not be destroyed, but used to "fix the value (of money) thereof" 
 and reduce the rate of interest to three per cent., which can be justly, 
 wisely and constitutionally accomplished, to the enormous benefit of the 
 people and Government. That this is one of the richest nations in the 
 world, and should pay no higher rates for the use of money than the most 
 favored nation on the globe. 
 
 We propose to show that the Government should gradually, during 
 the next five ^^ears, increase the United States Treasurj^ notes in circula- 
 tion to one thousand millions of dollars, and that Congress should author- 
 ize an issue of fifteen hundred millions of dollars of three per cent, bonds, 
 
6 
 
 OUK NATIONAL FINAISTCES. 
 
 payable in thirty or forty^ years ; wliicli would reduce the amount of inter- 
 est to be collected from one hundred and fifty to forty-five millions of dol- 
 lars per annum, and to demonstrate that this is as high a rate as the peo- 
 ple can pay, or should be required to pay. 
 
 AVe have been accused by the press of endeavoring to create prejudice 
 and array the poor against the rich. But our object has been, and is, the 
 very reverse. We wish that the country may, by adopting wise legisla- 
 tion, give the industrial classes no just cause to complain, and thus disarm 
 prejudice and prevent any unreasonable demands upon the more fortunate 
 classes. The only mode to avoid confusion and repudiation is by prudent 
 legislation on republican and democratic principles — to confer " the great- 
 est good on the greatest number ; " but, of course, restricting the enact- 
 ments within constitutional limits. But if the capitalists oppress the 
 masses, they will take the Government into their own hands, and may in 
 turn oppress the oppressors. There is no more efi'ectual or cruel mode of 
 oppression than exacting unnecessary taxes, and there is no scheme which 
 increases taxation so rapidly and is so unpopular as to pay excessive sums 
 and rates for the use of money. 
 
 AVhen w^e speak of capitalists, we do not include the men who have 
 saved and loan a few thousands, more or less, but of the class known as 
 " millionaires," who aspire to control the Government and shape legisla- 
 tion for their special benefit. They purchase presses and control politi- 
 cians that denounce every man that has sufiicient independence to assert 
 what he believes to be right and just. These men are never so dangerous 
 as when tliey are able to keep the financial question ''out of politics, for 
 they find it much easier to control leading men in both ^pai^ties than to 
 manage it when it becomes a party question. The capitalists have suc- 
 ceeded in manipulating the politicians in IN'ew York and in the Kew Eng- 
 land States, and their success affords a fine illustration of their power and 
 finesse in political diplomacy. It is to be learned whether they can con- 
 trol the conventions of the other States, and especially the Western States, 
 wdiere there is more independence and intelligence on the financial ques- 
 tions, as readily as they have the Eastern conventions. Keep it out of 
 politics," and they expect, as heretofore, to be able to fix a majority that 
 will vote as they direct. The late three-fourth vote in Congress, prevent- 
 ing further contraction, was a perfect stunner to these gentlemen, and, to 
 recover the vantage ground, they are persistently urging the immediate 
 adoption of an enactment authorizing the issue of " long bonds " for twen- 
 ty-five hundred millions of dollars. We do not wish to be understood as 
 charging these men as being either better or w^orse than other men. Per- 
 
INTEODUCTION AND EXPLAITATION. 
 
 7 
 
 haps, if the reader or writer was placed in the same or similar circum- 
 stances, we would employ tlie same means to subserve our interests. Hu- 
 man nature is very much the same, and legal enactments are a convenient 
 shelter for weak consciences, as well as strong bulwarks for oppressors. 
 
 We are acquainted with honorable men who live by loaning money at 
 high rates of interest, and these accommodations frequently save men and 
 families from ruin. These are excaptional cases, and are no excuse why 
 the Government should not supply the demand, either directly or indi- 
 rectly, and protect its own interests and the property and labor of its sub- 
 jects from loss and oppression. One of the principal duties of a good gov- 
 ernment is to protect the property and promote the welfare of the people, 
 and the most direct and effectual mode of accomplisliing this desirable 
 and natural object is to properly regulate the national finances ; and it is 
 impossible for a government to do this unless it supplies the demand for 
 money at reasonable rates. When this is done, it will receive the income, 
 benefit individuals, and greatly reduce, if not entirely pay, the expenses 
 of the State. 
 
 It will be observed that this pamphlet is number fifteen. These little 
 works have been published and scattered without compensation, at a cost 
 of several thousand dollars. They were commenced with the commence- 
 ment of the Eebellion. Our principal object has been to prove that paper 
 money issued and guaranteed by the Government would immensely benefit 
 the people and country. In the first number published in 1862, we said; 
 Issuing the Treasury Notes will reduce the value of some incomes, and 
 ofi*end those who have money to loan and live at ease without labor, a 
 curse to themselves and to society. It will bring happiness to millions 
 who are struggling with poverty, and allow them, to pay for their farms 
 and homes, and relieve them from the eternal bondage of debt and mort- 
 gages. Cheap money will, with its magic wancl^ fill the land with factories, 
 whose fabrics and arts will compete with Europe, giving our people work, 
 and retaining our gold and silver at home. Cheap money will cause the 
 wildernsss to blossom like the rose, and dot our ocean-like prairies with 
 beautiful villages, and cover them with farms and happy homes, adding 
 vastly to the gloey, power, and kiciies of the nation. - Is there any valid 
 reason why the Government of the United States should not borrow money 
 on as favorable terms as the Government of England ? Our Congress 
 should issue as few honds as possible^ and make them payable at sliort 
 dateSj bearing not over five percent, interest, issuing notes for all demands 
 and payments of the Government up io five or six hundred miWiou^ of dol- 
 lars. They can be used, greatly benefitting the people, and avoiding the 
 
8 
 
 OUE NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 necessity of raising heavy taxes and paying large sums of interest money. 
 
 A large amount of the bills will be lost and destroyed. When the war 
 is ended, if it is thought best to fund them in three or five "per cent, londs, 
 it can be done. The better plan would be — and should be adopted if tho 
 notes are returned faster than is convenient — for the Government to ap- 
 point Commissioners in the new States and Territories, and lend the notes, 
 under suitable restrictions, to farmers who wish to settle on and improve 
 the Government lands. This would immensely benefit the country, and 
 the Government would be KECEIYING INSTEAD OF PAYING IN- 
 TEEEST. 
 
 The people will gladly sell the Government all it requires to feed, clothe, 
 and arm the army and navy, and take these notes. Our great country 
 will absorb them by the hundreds of millions without interest. They are 
 just the thing for California and Oregon, for the people of the Territories, 
 for the Indians, for everybody. They are popular now ; make them a legal 
 tender and the people will hoard them. Then, Senators and Statesmen, 
 jput them out, and people will keep them out, and give you all the funds 
 you require, without begging of the banks, who have comparatively but 
 little money and a limited credit. 
 
 We think that these calculations, made six years since, have been literally 
 fulfilled. When we wrote the first Pamphlet we had no thought of pub- 
 lishing a second, but the attempts of the Bullionists to ridicule and dis- 
 prove our arguments, induced us to write and publish upon the subject, 
 and especially as the more we reflected and examined these questions the 
 more we were convinced of their great public importance. At first, we 
 endeavored, to the best of our ability, to show the inconsistency of Mr. 
 Chase, in his endeavors to deprecate the use of the Treasury Notes, and 
 afterward to expose the fallacy and false statements contained in the Re- 
 ports of Mr. McCulloch. At this time the entire Press, we believe 
 without a single exception, endorsed him and his pernicious dogmas. 
 
 In 1863 we published a pamphlet, and in order to have it attract atten- 
 tion and readers, we wrote it in the form of a dialogue : and it is probable 
 that from it came the celebrated argument " that a public debt was a pub- 
 lic blessing." We strove in vain to prevent the issue of Bonds, the interest 
 of which was payable in gold, and still believe that it was almost a fatal 
 mistake and perfectly unnecessary. 
 
 We wrote as follows : 
 
 B. C. — We must demonstrate to foreign capitalists our ability and 
 willingness to pay our loans, and a determination to immediately resume 
 specie payments, or they will not invest in our bonds. 
 
IXTEODUCTION AIS^D EXPLAis^ATION, 
 
 9 
 
 R. — The greatest calamity, and the one most probable, that can befall 
 the country, is that foreigners will invest — will take advantage of the price 
 of excliange, and purchase largely of our securities ; and Congress should 
 at once pass a law, with severe penalties attached, prohibiting and restrict- 
 ing the sale of bonds to any but American citizens residing in the country. 
 Fifty millions on every one hundred millions of dollars is too great a sum 
 to be thrown away. 
 
 B. C. — You do not affirm that English, German, and French capitalists 
 should be debarred the privilege of purchasing our Government securi- 
 ties? 
 
 H. — Yes, sir; I do,'unles3 they purchase directly from the Government, 
 and pay par for them, and in gold. 
 
 B. C. — That is an original idea. It has been supposed it would be a 
 great advantage if we could induce foreign capitalists to purchase our ' 
 stocks. 
 
 H. — Our great I^ational [Debt will prove a great national blessing, if 
 we can retain it at home. It is only so much working capital added to 
 the resources of the country. The interest disbursed to our own people 
 would very greatly benefit them. But suppose, sir, one thousand millions 
 should be taken abroad, it would cost then only about half that sum. To 
 pay the interest on this one thousand million?, we should be obliged to 
 ship then, annually, either in produce or gold, sixty millions — sinking, by 
 the operation, five hundred millions at once, and still be obliged to pay 
 the interest on the same. This, indeed, would be a great national calamity. 
 We require neither their aid nor their gold. The Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury should issue one thousand millions of Treasury iSTotes. The wants, 
 requirements, and the business of the country will absorb, hold, and use 
 them. This would save sixty millionsannually. Their issue Avould reduce 
 the rate of interest from six to three per cent. ; and, as the Government is 
 obliged to negotiate fifteen hundred millions of bonds, forty additional 
 millions, at least, would be saved. This sum saved would liquidate our 
 entire debt in less than fifteen years. 
 
 B. C. — If this were possible, it would reduce the incomes of capitalists 
 one-half ; and, sir, what would become of the poor widows and orphans 
 who live on their interest ? 
 
 B[. — ^There are but very few capitalists or widows who live on their in- 
 comes, wdio have not also large landed and personal estates, which would 
 be correspondingly increased. Your sympathy seems to be entirely with 
 the few thousands who live in idleness on their incomes ; mine is with the 
 toiling millions, who have no capital, except their hands, and in times past 
 
10 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 and, I trust, past forever), have been frequently without work or bread. 
 
 If this advice had been followed the country would have saved several 
 hundred millions of dollars that has been lost by discarding it. 
 
 In another of our pamphlets, we published the following. It was writ- 
 ten in view of the immense benefits that the Treasury Notes had conferred 
 upon the Nation. One of the members of Congress from Ohio, in a speech 
 delivered in the House, attempted to ridicule the sentiment ; but, after 
 three years of consideration, we endorse it now as emphatically as we did 
 then, and again place it on record to encounter the sneers of Bullionists. 
 We said : 
 
 And we inquire again, if paper money is so powerful, fruitful and ben- 
 eficial in war, why not use it in time of peace, to build up our marts and 
 cities, and banish the thoughts of blood and carnage. We solemnly 
 declare to the world that the greatest, the cheapest and most beneficent 
 power on the earth, excepting that of God, is Paper Money. 
 
 In another of our pamphlets, we published the following, and believe it 
 is applicable now as it was then, and reproduce it for the consideration of 
 the thoughtful : 
 
 Give the people the use of one thousand millions of Government money 
 and the National Debt will prove to be one of the greatest of National 
 Blessings. Eefuse to do it and it is a tremendous, grinding, crushing, 
 withering, blasting curse, to remain for generations. 
 
 Issue one thousand millions of dollars in Treasury Notes and all talk and 
 thoughts of repudiation will vanish. Refuse to do it and there will be 
 continued excitement and a probability of national disgrace. 
 
 If it is inquired how and when would you have the Government redeem 
 this money, we reply. Its beauty and utility consist in the proposition that 
 it does not require to be redeemed any more than gold or silver. And 
 the fact that, when a bill, or roll of bills, is lost by fire or otherwise, 
 the debt of the Government is reduced, establishes its superiority. And 
 the saving of the amount of the waste or wear of the coins, is a very large 
 item of economy. The loss is so considerable that the Bank of England, 
 instead of counting gold, is obliged to pay it out by weight. 
 
 We might have added then, as we did in another of our little works, 
 that the Government redeems more than five hundred millions of the 
 Treasury Notes annually, for taxes, stamps, lands, etc. We have stated 
 that we published these works to elicit discussion and call public attention. 
 How far we have succeeded, or how much we have helped to arouse atten. 
 tion to these important subjects is not for us to estimate. Though 
 the cost has been considerable, we do not regret that we incurred it, and 
 
IKTEODUCTIO^ AKD EXPLANATIOK. 
 
 11 
 
 are rejoiced the Nation is at last aroused to the mighty importance of the 
 questions involved in our ^' National Finances." 
 
 In 1861, when we attem|)ted to convince the public that it was the doty 
 and privilege of the Government to issue six hundred millions dollars in 
 Legal Tender Treasury Notes, the proposition was received with derision, 
 the Bullionists declared the thing was "absurd," "preposterous," "im- 
 possible," etc. 
 
 We suppose the proposition to reduce the rate of interest to three per 
 cent, per annum will be received with as little respect. But we are satis- 
 fied, from a full survey of the financial situation, the condition of public 
 sentiment, and the enormous amount of the Government debt, that a 
 further large issue of Treasury Notes will be required to satisfy the rea- 
 sonable demand for money ; that the manufacturing interests, public im- 
 provements, and the welfare of the trading and agricultural classes, abso- 
 lutely require and will receive encouragement from Congress by another 
 large issue of Government money. 
 
 Capitalists will soon learn that there are other interests beside capital 
 invested in bonds to be respected in the United States. And that they 
 will be protected by legislation. 
 
 The following from " the most conservative man in the Senate " is 
 worthy of consideration in this connection : 
 
 The laws authorizing the issue of bonds bearing interest in coin, specifi- 
 cally pledged the revenue from customs to the payment of that interest, 
 and provided for the collection of those duties in the same currency. In 
 the opinion of the Secretary, that pledge should not be violated ; a de- 
 parture from it could only be vindicated by one of those State necessities 
 which justify a nation in temporarily postponing its obligations in order to 
 preserve the power to discharge them at a future day. When the pledge 
 was given, no one anticipated a possible continuance of the war for such a 
 length of time as would involve the increase of the public debt to the point 
 it has already attained, or the possible payment of interest in coin to an 
 amount beyond the ability of duties on imports to supply. 
 
 It was remarkable that very soon after this was written that the New 
 York magnates and politicians. Republican and Democratic, who gen- 
 erally rule the finances and the Nation, discovered " that Mr. Fessenden's 
 state of health " would not permit him to remain in office, and he was per- 
 mitted to retire. 
 
 Secretaries hereafter who speak nothing but plain truth in regard to the 
 National Finances will not be forced to escape official station from fear of 
 Capitalists and Bullionists. 
 
OUR NATIONAL FINANCES 
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE REPUBLICAN 
 PARTY : THE CAUSE. WILL THEY 
 BE SUCCESSFUL IN THE NEXT 
 ELECTION ? Etc. 
 
 It lias been very tersely stated, that tlie 
 cause of the defeat of the Republicans at the 
 recent elections was because they remained at 
 home, but it has not been fairly explained why 
 they staid at home, instead of depositing their 
 votes at the polls as usual. How it was in 
 other States we do not pretend to know, but 
 an extensive acquaintance with the Repub- 
 licans in the States of New York and New Jer- 
 sey enables us to form a correct opinion as to 
 their sentiments, and the chief reason why 
 they did not attend the elections. 
 
 The Republican party in those States is com- 
 posed of active business men, merchants, trad- 
 ers, manufacturers, master mechanics, farmers, 
 artisans, etc. ; are enterprising and intelligent 
 men, being in business that requires money 
 and credit in which their welfare and fortunes 
 are involved. They were compelled from per- 
 sonal considerations to ask to be excused from 
 endorsing the destructive policy of the Repub- 
 lican managers, who invited the merchant to 
 vote that his merchandise should be largely 
 depreciated ; they asked the mechanic to vote 
 that the price of his house and lot and ma- 
 chinery be marked down 30 or 40 per cent.; 
 they proclaimed that the farmer was receiving 
 " exorbitant " prices for his labor and produce, 
 that the price of his live stock and farm was 
 " inflated," and " must be reduced for his own 
 benefit," as well as for those who live upon the 
 iacome or interest of money, who were repre- 
 sented as suffering intensely. 
 
 To state it more succinctly, the millionaires 
 and magnates of the Republican party residing 
 
 in the City of New York, requested the business 
 and laboring men of the party to vote for the 
 destruction of their own personal interests — to 
 vote to bankrupt and impoverish themselves. 
 These men knew if the States of New York 
 and New Jersey should give Republican ma- 
 jorities it would be proclaimed as a brilliant 
 victory, and an endorsement of the financial 
 policy of Chase, Morgan, McCuUoch & Co. 
 
 The Republicans who avoided the polls love 
 freedom as ardently as ever, but being men of 
 intelligence, they believed that the question of 
 the reorganization of the Southern States is 
 substantially settled, and, even if it was not, 
 they had a higher and more imperative duty 
 which they owed themselves and families, self- 
 preservation, which is the first duty of man 
 and communities. 
 
 SENATOR MORGAN. 
 
 The Republicans opened the late political 
 campaign at the Cooper Institute. At that 
 great ratification meeting Senator Morgan pre- 
 sided, and made the opening speech, in which 
 he said : " Next in importance as a political 
 question is that of the public debt and our na- 
 tional finances. The business of the country 
 has so long been conducted upon a largely 
 depreciated paper currency, to which the peo- 
 ple have become accustomed, and, to some ex- 
 tent, satisfied, that adequate efforts are not 
 being made for an early return to specie pay- 
 ments. [Cheers.] This is our great error; 
 and from it comes a brood of others, among 
 which is a proposition, put forth by a few pub- 
 lic men, to pay one of the great popular classes 
 of United States bonds in greenbacks instead 
 of coin." 
 
 We shall not discuss the question, at least at 
 present, of the propriety of paying the 5-20 
 
14 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 bonds in the same description of money that 
 was received for them. It was but natural 
 that Senator Morgan, living as he does on 
 Murray Hill, and surrounded with million- 
 aires who own hundreds of millions of Gov- 
 ernment securities, should condemn the propo- 
 sition to pay these bonds in the currency that 
 was given for them. 
 
 Men who live in splendor upon the interest 
 of money, high above the common people, im- 
 agine themselves superior beings, and that 
 the possession of very great wealth gives them 
 the right to exact any usury or terms they 
 choose, and any man that questions their mo- 
 tives or authority is branded a " knave " or 
 "scoundrel." 
 
 If Senator Morgan had not been as frank as 
 he was, and acknowledged as he did, in the 
 following words : " Industry languishes under 
 excessive taxation, and must be disenthralled. 
 Commercial, agricultural and mechanical in 
 terests all feel the present burdens which grow 
 more and more onerous, and will continue to 
 do so as currency gravitates toward a gold 
 value," The Republicans, who are men that 
 read and reflect, were aware, before the Senator 
 informed them, that " their burdens would 
 grow more and more onerous," as the destruc- 
 tionists forced specie payments. It required 
 no statement to convince them " that industry 
 languishes under excessive taxation," and they 
 were and are perfectly convinced that this ex- 
 cessive taxation is caused by the excessive 
 rates of usury the Government unnecessarily 
 pays for the use of money. And that the Sen- 
 ator is one of the most powerful, from wealth 
 and influence, of any man in the country, to 
 promote, and is promoting, the increase of tax- 
 ation. They understand the whole subject. 
 They see, if others do not, that the great 
 capitalists, acting in concert with Johnson, Mc- 
 Culloch & Co., are determined to get the Gov- 
 ernment committed for the entire public debt, 
 in gold-bearing bonds. They are familiar with 
 the tactics of the Bullioni&ts, who are working 
 an extra number of clerks in the Treasury 
 office, working extra hours, in manufacturing 
 gold-bearing bonds, to be given in exchange 
 for those bearing interest in currency. And as 
 soon as this vantage ground is gained, the 
 
 ravens that follow the carcass, will cry Long 
 Bonds I Long Bonds ! 
 
 Senator Morgan garnished his speech with 
 some pathetic and eloquent sentences, to make 
 it palatable to the one million of people who 
 reside in and near the city, and who in reality 
 are only the servants of the few hundred capi- 
 talists that own, or at least control and use 
 them, and the avails of their genius, skill, and 
 labor— he repeated the stale trash, that "in- 
 creased circulation greatly enhances the cost 
 of all commodities of daily life." 
 
 The price current has constantly exjjloded 
 this popular nonsense. Sheep and wool are 
 both commodities of daily life, and both are 
 so depressed in value as to make it a ruinous 
 business to raise or keep them. If there was 
 no greater foreign demand for grain, flour, 
 provisions, etc., than there is for sheep and 
 wool, our farmers would be unable to pay their 
 family expenses and their taxes ; and every 
 sensible and intelligent person will acknowl- 
 edge that short crops and high prices in Europe, 
 and not "an inflated currency," is the only 
 reason why the commodities of daily life are 
 enhanced. In another chapter we shall exam- 
 ine this subject more at length. 
 
 The intelligent Republicans realize the im- 
 portance of the approaching Presidential elec- 
 tion, and know if they indorsed the policy of 
 the contractionists, their votes would be claimed 
 in the next canvass to support the oligarchs, 
 and that they would be forced either to aban- 
 don the Republican party, or vote for their 
 own abasement, and are watching the drift of 
 their party with the deepest anxiety, believing 
 that freedom in the Southern States depends 
 upon the course that is adopted upon this, the 
 most important of all political questions—that 
 of our National Finances. 
 
 In order to establish the truth of the asser- 
 tions that the Republicans were invited to ruin 
 themselves and bankrupt the country, we copy 
 the following editorial from the most respecta- 
 ble and influential Republican paper in the 
 country. It appeared a few days previous to 
 the election. We give it entire. This is only 
 a fair sample of those that were constantly 
 published in the majority of the Republican 
 papers : 
 
THE DEFEAT OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, Etc. 
 
 15 
 
 MOVING TOWARD SPECIE PAYMENTS. 
 
 The Bank statement, sliowinp^ a decrease of 
 over tliree millions in the surplus of reserve, 
 the continued activity on call loans to specu- 
 lators, the increased difficulty in negotiating 
 commercial bills, together with the unsatis- 
 factory condition of trade and manufactures 
 generally, give new interest to the financial 
 action of Congress at its approaching meeting. 
 As usual, speculators and traders upon bor- 
 rowed money declare that the salvation of the 
 country depends upon a further increase of 
 legal-tender money, and that Congress should 
 without delay take from Mr. McCulloch the 
 power of destroying the paltry sum of four 
 millions per month. As the currency can 
 never be brought to specie by increasing the 
 volume of paper, which causes gold dollars to 
 sell at a premium, and as this fact is now plain 
 to every member of Congress, speculators and 
 over-traders on borrowed capital must prepare 
 themselves to see a little delay by Congress, 
 before it commits the f?tal and stupid blunder 
 of stopping the moderate contraction of the 
 currency allowed to the Treasury. Contrac- 
 tion is now plainly seen to be not only the first 
 duty ot Congress to the national creditors, and 
 to the permanent interests of the country, but 
 the popular policy as well. The people only 
 tolerated irredeemable paper money as a des- 
 perate mode of meeting the expenses of the 
 Rebellion, and will not long suffer its use, 
 when the credit of the nation is where long 
 five per cent, bonds can be sold at par. The 
 old plan of paper dollars redeemable in gold 
 at their place of issue, and the democratic idea 
 of hard money for all purposes, are again put- 
 ting in their claims, and daily find new advo- 
 cates. All the signs of the times are favorable 
 to a steady return to specie payments, and the 
 solvent part of the country does not expect 
 Congress to put any restriction upon the Sec- 
 retary's present power to retire the legal ten- 
 ders, but at a proper time does expect to see 
 Congress enlarge it, and direct him to pay in 
 gold every dollar. Upon the question of cur- 
 rency tho annual message of the President 
 and the report of Secretary McCulloch will be 
 in harmony, and specie payment be declared 
 the settled policy. These officials will proba- 
 bly re-state their opinions so forcibly that, if 
 Congress should indiscreetly attempt " finan- 
 cial reconstruction " in the direction of more 
 irredeemable paper, the movement will be de- 
 layed at least by Executive interposition. All 
 business which will be harmed by retiring four 
 millions of legal tender per month out of the 
 present mass of $301,000,000, cannot be closed 
 up too soon, and all banks having more circu- 
 lation than they can manage with gold at par 
 should lose no lime in getting it home. 
 
 This revealed what the capitalists were pro. 
 
 viding for the masses. It tells the whole story, 
 
 and therefore requires no explanation. It ap- 
 
 pears that even a veto was promised to curb the 
 refractory members of Congress. " The solvent 
 men " had the whole matter arranged — but the 
 game was blocked, or failed of indorsement, 
 as every other scheme should be that aims to 
 benefit the few at the expense of the many. 
 
 There are tens of thousands of staunch Re- 
 publicans, merchants, traders, mechanics, farm- 
 ers, etc., who are honest men. Circumstances, 
 unfortunately, compel them to use borrowed 
 money. All are striving to become independ- 
 ent and free from obligations. They were in- 
 sultingly informed that Congress should legis- 
 late for the benefit of the Bond holders, and 
 break " the speculators," as all business men 
 are called who are not independently rich. 
 
 We copy another editorial from the same 
 paper. It makes the following important ad- 
 missions. It reads thus : 
 
 WORTH THINKING OF. 
 
 This country is staggering under an enor- 
 mous load of Public Debt. The Federal Gov- 
 ernment owes Two Billions and a Half ; the 
 States owe large amounts ; while Counties, 
 Cities and Townships, have each their several 
 burdens. We are paying, in the aggregate, 
 not less than Th ree Hundred Millions per 
 annum as interest on these various debts, 
 while we are considerably reducing the princi- 
 pal, especially of the local obligations in- 
 curred in providing bounties for the volunteers 
 in our late struggle. Altogether, the taxes 
 paid by the people of the United States, 
 though considerably reduced from the maxi- 
 mum they attained in 1865-6, must probably 
 exceed Five Hundred Millions per annum. 
 Almost everything is taxed, from the baby's 
 posset to the old man's coffin — many things 
 twice and thrice over. It is generally agreed 
 that our taxation may be readjusted and sim- 
 plified, so as to render it considerably less irk- 
 some. 
 
 Will some one attempt to explain the seem- 
 ing paradox of an immense and steadily in- 
 creasing migration, from countries that owe 
 little nnd tax lightly in comparison, to this 
 overburdened republic ? That some should 
 fiock hither at all events, is natural ; but that 
 the volume of immigration should be not 
 merely maintained but largely augmented, 
 under the pressure of gigantic debt, a high 
 tariff", heavy internal taxes, and an inflated, 
 irredeemable currency, is a puzzle to political 
 economists. Immigrants are still pouring in, 
 at the rate of a thousand per day ; and all of 
 them who know how to do anything, and will 
 do it, find employment and remuneration. 
 Labor is as well paid in the average, and as 
 comfortably subsisted, as it was when we had 
 
IC 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 next to no debt, lifjlit taxes, and a currency 
 convertible into specie at par. The real estate 
 of the country could be sold to day for more 
 money (reduced to specie) than it was worth 
 ten years ac^o. Most of our people are pros- 
 perinor ; many are amassing wealth. ILmses 
 are being built on every hand ; lands are being 
 improved ; new farms are being hev/n out of 
 the forest and carved from the wild prairie ; 
 our railroads are being extended at the rate of 
 a thousand miles per annum ; and the product 
 of our National Industry in 18G7 will be larger 
 than that of any former year. 
 
 Do we not need a new political economy 
 recognizing and adapted to this state of facts ? 
 
 This is a candid, but mild description, of 
 some of the benefits that the use of the Treas- 
 ury money Las conferred upon the public. It 
 is a paradox that confounds the ethics of the 
 Bullionists, who believe that it requires a cur- 
 rency at par with gold to make a nation pros- 
 perous, which is a mistake, as this editorial 
 abundantly demonstrates. 
 
 The cause of this prosperity and emigration 
 is no mystery. It is simple cause and effect — 
 human nature exemplified. " Where the car- 
 cass is, there will the eagles be gathered." 
 Men will flock to those places and countries 
 where money is abundant. If money is plenty, 
 business is brisk, and labor is well rewarded, 
 and attracts emigrants. 
 
 Under the democratic rule of Buchnnan and 
 Bullion, tens of thousands of emigrants re- 
 turned to Europe, and other tens of thousands 
 were fed at public soup houses, because trade 
 and improvements were dwarfed by the inade- 
 quate amount of circulating medium in the 
 country ; because the Government had neglect- 
 ed its first and most important duty — that of 
 furnishing a representative of capital to pro- 
 pel the trade and industry of the nation. 
 
 The people were informed " as soon as bot- 
 tom was touched," specie payments resumed, 
 there will be an increase of business, prosper- 
 ity, etc. The people of this country have 
 ''touched bottom" several times, and do not 
 admire the process. 
 
 The great capitalists are, from interest, 
 " Bears," and are constantly endeavoring to 
 reduce prices of all property, excepting money, 
 and the rents of houses, stores, etc. They are 
 continually predicting calamities, and endeav- 
 oring to create panics in the money market, 
 
 which is their harvest time, and allows them 
 to plunder the community with impunity. 
 
 Since the issue of Government paper money 
 they have been unable to control the markets 
 as formerly, and this enrages them. 
 
 They protested, with all of their energies, 
 against the issue of the Treasury notes, and 
 Mr. Chase assured them the exigencies of the 
 situation compelled him, against his better 
 judgment, to use them (they were, in fact, the 
 salvation of the country), and would be de- 
 stroyed as soon as possible. To appease the 
 wrath of the capitalists he issued bonds hav- 
 ing interest payable in gold, for he could not 
 induce Congress, with all of his power and 
 popularity, to consent to make them gold 
 bonds, payable in specie. Intelligent Repub- 
 licans, as we have stated, had been Qbservant 
 spectators, and witnessed, with admiration, the 
 vast benefits that this money conferred upon 
 the Government and community, and were un- 
 willing to cast their votes, when they knew, if 
 their party triumphed, it would be claimed as 
 an indorsement of the destructive policy of 
 Johnson, McCulloch, Morgan & Co., in regard 
 to the Treasury notes, and the fundirg and 
 payment of the National securities. 
 
 They were astonished to see eminent Repub- 
 licans sustaining the measures and recommend- 
 ations of the Secretary of the Treasury, in his 
 schemes for the annihilation of the Union 
 party, for they knew that he had done more to 
 distract and demoralize their party than the 
 President a hundredfold. But it is more than 
 probable the two were, and are, working in 
 concert for the same object. 
 
 Mr. McCulloch was the first officer of the 
 Government, after the death of Mr. Lincoln, 
 who openly defied and trampled upon the in- 
 structions and laws of Cengress. He was the 
 first to appoint notorious Rebels to places of 
 trust and honor. And so busy has he been 
 engaged with politics that he abandoned the 
 interests of the Treasury. While he was talk- 
 ing about and recommending the " strictest 
 economy,'' he allowed hundreds of millions of 
 dollars of revenue to remain uncollected. His 
 constant aim seems to have been, to destroy 
 the property of the people, knowing this was 
 the only way to defeat the Union Party, who, 
 
PRESIDEXT JOHNSON ON THE FINANCES. 
 
 17 
 
 by glorious statesmansliip for tlie Union and 
 Freedom, have won tlie gratitude of a large 
 majority of a grateful people. 
 
 The statesman or party who expects to be 
 retained in power and legislate for the ben- 
 efit of capitalists, and ignore the interests of 
 the people who labor and create the wealth 
 of the nation, will, if they are so blind or 
 demented as to be influenced by two mil- 
 lions of persons that subsist in idleness, 
 in elegant ease and luxurious pleasures, 
 will be grossly mistaken. Politicians or states- 
 men who believe that money at interest should 
 receive the first and best i'ruits of the land, 
 to the exclusion of the industrious, will 
 soon understand that the thirty odd mil- 
 lions of educated and intelligent freemen 
 who inhabit this new and glorious hem- 
 isphere will not submit to such flagrant wrong 
 and gross injustice. 
 
 PRESIDENT JOHNSON ON THE 
 FINANCES. 
 The President in his late Message speaks in 
 regard to the circulation of money as follows : 
 
 Nor can it be controlled by legislation, but 
 must be left to the irrevocable laws which 
 everywhere regulate commerce and trade. The , 
 circulating medium will ever irresistibly flow , 
 to those points where it is in greatest demand. ' 
 The law of demand and supply is as unerring 
 as that which regulates the tides of the ocean, ; 
 and, indeed, currency, like the tides, has its ! 
 ebbs and flows throughout the commercial 
 world. I 
 
 ! 
 
 This is one of the many hackneyed sentences 
 that is repeated with but little variation of 
 words by every person that writes on finance ! 
 or political economy, who attempts to de- ; 
 fend the theory that gold is the only proper ' 
 basis for a circulating medium, and that real ; 
 money can only be produced from gold and ' 
 silver. 1 
 
 And the statement that " The circulating 
 medium will ever irresistibly flow to those j 
 points where it is in greatest demand," is an- j 
 other of those popular errors that is contra- j 
 dieted by incontrovertible facts, and the opera- ; 
 tion of the money markets of Christendom. | 
 Money flows in a continual stream from Cali- ; 
 fornia, where it is worth from 10 to 20 per I 
 3 
 
 cent., to London and Paris where it is loaned 
 at 2 and 3 per cent, per annum. 
 
 The supposition that supply and demand 
 applies to any system of finance that has ever 
 been adopted in this country ^ ^oreposterous. 
 Here there has invariably bj^ great de- 
 mand, but no adequate suppl^^.^ 
 
 ■ In order to have the rules of supply and de- 
 mand apply, it would first bt? necessary to 
 permanently j?.c the price by which the demand 
 could be supplied. For instant^-, the demand 
 for money, discounts and loans, would be much 
 heavier at 3 per cent, than it would be at 6 
 per cent, and much larger at 6 per cent, than 
 at 12 or 24 per cent. 
 
 The perfection of statesmanship, if it is ever 
 attained, will be to devise a system that will 
 regulate the issue of currency at reasonable 
 j rates, say from 1 to 3 per cent., and fully sup- 
 ply the demand. 
 
 If a person wishes to borrow money, and 
 can give good security, he should have the 
 privilege, as much as he sh raid to purchase 
 a barrel of flour after he s obtained the 
 
 loan. .ced w 
 
 The Bank of Engljuid g^.^rns the supply 
 and demand for money in Great Britain, and 
 not only regulates the supply, but the directors 
 at their pleasure bankrupt one-half the busi- 
 ness firms in the kingdom, and exert a bane- 
 ful influence to the ends of the earth. The 
 president and directors of this giant monopoly 
 in 1863 supposed " that the speculators were 
 going too fast," suddenly refused to supply the 
 demand for money and put-up the rate of in- 
 terest from 3 to 4, 5, 6,,-th^. 9, 10, 11 and 12 
 per cent, and then " shut^ ^Q.n the gates." A 
 terrible panic ensued, aqQggg(3 usands and tens 
 of thousands of merchaij-efp-^nd manufacturers, 
 men who had abundant property, were ruined 
 and forced into bankruptcy, and their property 
 sacrificed by their odious bankrupt law which 
 forced it to a sale when money was in demand 
 at the Bank at 12 per cent., and 24 per cent, on 
 the street. 
 
 The circulating value of gold, which is said 
 never varies, was so dwarfed that every de- 
 scription of securities, including Consols, was 
 so much depreciated, that the Government 
 became alarmed, and ordered the Bank to 
 
18 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 loose its grasp. An edict was promulgated 
 that five millions of pounds sterling, in Bank 
 of England notes, should be issued, and the 
 panic immediately subsided. But an irrepar- 
 able injury h!)uiibeen perpetrated, and tens of 
 thousands m ^^"^^norable men, living in afflu- 
 ence, was de^„,fj\'3d, business suspended, wages 
 reduced, and the Bank that confiscated and 
 hoarded illetfiiimate millions has a surplus of 
 money to lo!>'^ at very low rates — or, in other 
 words, has l>8ii'<^d the huge man-trap with very 
 cheap moiiey, and, at the proper time, will 
 spring it again, and catch the property and 
 earnings of the people and devour them, as in 
 the memorable year 1866. It should not be 
 forgotten that this panic run its course with- 
 out breaking the Banks, and their hills were par 
 with gold. There was no " degraded currency " 
 to be made the convenient scapegoat of incom- 
 petent men, as is the case in this country. 
 
 It is a gross perversion of truth and common 
 sense to assert that there is a supply of money 
 when merchant traders, farmers, etc., in good 
 
 standing, and ^ offer good securities, are 
 
 yS. tc- 
 
 refused discoui , '''^gal rates. In the great 
 provision marts West, perfectly solvent 
 
 firms are oblige* pay froin 10 to 30 per cent, 
 per annum for use of money. This is a 
 disgrace to the nation, especially as this heavy 
 usury is deducted from the labor of the agricul- 
 turists, who produce the wealth which sus- 
 tains the Government and the whole fabric of 
 society. 
 
 The President advocates resumption, and 
 Bays : " This can o -""y be accomplished by the 
 restoration of the Tency to the standard es- 
 tablished by the^ istitution, and by this 
 
 .id iiK . . ^. 
 
 means we woux /nove a discnmmation 
 
 which THy^ if ii^^^ not already done so, 
 create a prejudice that may become deep-rooted 
 and widespread, and imperil the national cred- 
 it. The feasibility of making our currency 
 correspond with the Constitutional standard 
 may be seen by reference to a few facts derived 
 from our commercial statistics." 
 
 Mr. Johnson has " Constitution on the brain," 
 which accounts for the language quoted above. 
 
 If there is any one thing taught in the Con- 
 stitution — in plain terms, in which there is no 
 double meaning — it is, that Congress has the 
 
 power " to issue bills of credit — to coin money, 
 and fix the value thereof.'* 
 
 If the argument is sound that the value of 
 money cannot be fixed, then Congress is em- 
 powered to do an impossible thing. But Con- 
 gress is authorized, in the plain, expressed 
 language of the Constitution, to coin and stamp 
 gold or paper, or, if the reader prefers, to issue 
 bills of credit — Treasury notes. And these 
 bills of credit, stamped with the seal of the 
 Government, which fixes their value, and are 
 by law received for revenue, land, etc. — hun- 
 dreds of millions of this money has been paid 
 out and received for taxes, and the Supreme 
 Court has decided again and again that they 
 are valid — and it is futile for any one to say 
 that they are only " a degraded " currency — 
 and when the President declares they are, he 
 degrades himself and the high office he occu- 
 pies. 
 
 They are the legal currency of the country, 
 and if the citizens of other nations do not ap- 
 preciate them, it is because they have no just 
 conception of the vast amount of wealth by 
 which they are secured ; and the citizen of the 
 United States that objects to this money has 
 not reflected on the vast benefits it has 
 conferred, and is still producing, upon this 
 great and mighty nation, whose organic law is 
 the result of the highest order of intelligence, 
 which imparted to Congress this tremendous 
 beneficent, conservative power, of creating a 
 medium of exchange, commensurate to the 
 requirements of thirty -five millions of people, 
 who inhabit the grandest and the richest em 
 pire that has ever existed upon the earth. 
 
 The President and Secretary of the Treasury 
 deserve impeachment for slandering the Gov- 
 ernment money. 
 
 We make another extract from the Message, 
 which exhibits the unfairness and the unfit- 
 ness of the President to advise Congress or 
 the people : 
 
 It has been asserted by one of our profound 
 and most gifted statesmen that " of all the 
 contrivances for cheating the laboring classes 
 of mankind none has been more effectual than 
 that which deludes them with paper money." 
 This is the most effectual of inventions to fer- 
 tilize the rich man's fields by the sweat of the 
 poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppres- 
 sion, excessive taxation, these bear lightly on 
 
THE REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. 
 
 19 
 
 the happiness of the mass of the community, 
 compared with a fraudulent currency and the 
 robberies committed by depreciated paper. 
 Our own history has recorded for our instruc- 
 tion enough, and more than enough, of the 
 demoralizing tendency, the injustice, and the 
 intolerable oppression on the well-disposed 
 of a degraded paper currency, authorized 
 by law or in any way countenanced by 
 Government, It is one of the most success- 
 ful devices in times of peace or war, expan- 
 sions or revulsions, to accomplish transfer of 
 the precious metals from the great mass of the 
 people into the hands of the few, where they 
 are hoarded in secret places, or deposited in 
 strong boxes under bolts and bars, while the 
 people are left to endure all the inconven- 
 iences, sacrifice and demoralization resulting 
 from the use of a depreciated and worthless 
 paper money. 
 
 It is perfectly astonishing that this portion 
 of the President's stump speech is indorsed by 
 eminent Republicans. His language correctly 
 describes the worthless stuff and system of 
 State Bank and wild-cat currency fostered by 
 the old Democratic party, which professed to 
 pay specie, and issued " convertible dollars." 
 Hundreds of these institutions failed, and 
 swindled the people out of hundreds of mil- 
 lions of dollars, inspiring confidence because 
 they professed to redeem with specie. 
 
 The "eminent statesman" referred to de- 
 scribed this rotten system of banking, which 
 McCuUoch regrets was not retained, and the 
 attempt of the President to compare that 
 system of illegal shinplaster banking with 
 the Treasury notes issued by the United 
 States Government and secured by the entire 
 property of the country, is a base attempt to 
 deceive the people and increase the financial 
 troubles which were culminating by the double 
 curse of the Secretary of the Treasury destroy- 
 ing and slandering the Government money. 
 
 The object of these efforts is as wicked and 
 contemptible as their motives are apparent. 
 They wish to destroy the prosperity of the 
 country, to demonstrate that the Republican 
 party is not competent to govern the nation. 
 
 Mr. Johnson, though professing to be indif- 
 ferent, is evidently endeavoring to do a suffi- 
 cient amount of dirty work to make him an 
 eligible candidate for reelection. His brain is 
 so full of Reconstruction, or struggling to pre- 
 vent it, that he is oblivious to the great change 
 
 that has taken place in the minds of the mass- 
 es, who have discovered, after it has been ex- 
 emplified by actual experience, that paper 
 money is their best friend, and appreciate the 
 vast difference there is between the Treasury 
 notes and the worthless rags that were formerly 
 forced upon them. If he had been well in- 
 formed as to the drift of public opinion, he 
 would not have attacked the people's money. 
 His attempt to " degrade " it will prevent him 
 from becoming the candidate of the Democratic 
 party for the Presidency. 
 
 THE REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF 
 THE TREASURY. 
 
 It is perfectly evident, from reading the pres- 
 ent report of Mr. McCulloch, as it was of his 
 previous messages, that his great object has 
 been to prove to the world and the country 
 that the Republican statesmen are incompetent 
 to administer the Government ; that they are 
 perfectly ignorant on the subject of finance 
 and political economy, as well as upon the sub- 
 ject of "rehabilitation" and reconstruction of 
 the Southern States. 
 
 Any person unacquainted with the charac- 
 ter and abilities of the last and those of the 
 present members of Congress, after reading 
 the Secretary's report, would be forced to ac- 
 knowledge, judging from the report, that our 
 statesmen were and are entirely unfit to legis- 
 late for the nation. And if they put confidence 
 in the Secretary, they would be obliged to ad- 
 mit that he, himself, has, with herculean labor 
 and consummate skill and wisdom, been the 
 salvation of the country. His constant effort 
 has been to demonstrate that the Democratic 
 administrations previous to Republican rule, 
 under Lincoln, were blessed, prosperous and 
 happy ; he constantly refers to " our previous 
 prosperity," to " the healthy state " of the na- 
 tion, etc., etc. 
 
 Mr. McCulloch formerly occupied a comfort- 
 able easy chair as the President of a State 
 Bank in Indiana, and may have been oblivious 
 to the miserable condition of the nation and 
 the people, who were floundering in poverty 
 and bankruptcy ; when our public improve- 
 ments were languishing; when the stock of 
 I the Erie Railroad was selling for 14 cents on 
 
20 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 the dollar, Harlem at 6 cents, and almost every 
 railroad in the United States was crippled and 
 endeavoring to negotiate second, third, and 
 even fourth, mortgage bonds to keep their cars 
 in motion and roads in repair. In those days 
 the people were so poverty-stricken as to be 
 unable to enjoy the luxury of travel for plea- 
 sure, and trade was so dwarfed that there was, 
 comparatively, but a small amount of freight, 
 and passengers travelling on business. 
 
 We propose to exhibit some of the Secretary's 
 gross errors and false aspersions and repre- 
 sentations. In the beginning of his report he 
 says: " 
 
 The policy of contracting the currency, al- 
 though not enforced to the extent authorized 
 by Jaw, has prevented an expansion of credits, 
 to which a redundant and especially a depreci- 
 ated currency is always an incentive, and has 
 had no little "influence in stimulating labor and 
 increasing production. Industry has been 
 steadily returning to the healthy channels 
 from which it was diverted during the war, 
 and although incomes have been small, and 
 trade generally inactive, in no other commer- 
 cial country has there been less financial em- 
 barrassment than in the United States. 
 
 There is not an intelligent merchant in the 
 country that does itot know that since the con- 
 traction of the currency there has been a large 
 expansion of credits. This is well known to 
 every observer, and every man in business is 
 aware that production, industry and labor, in- 
 stead of " entering healthier channels," was 
 being steadily contracted with the contraction 
 of the currency. This cannot be denied, and 
 we charge the Secretary of the Treasury with 
 ignorance, or with a wilful perversion of the 
 truth. 
 
 The Secretary has contended from the first 
 that a redundant currency is a disastrous curse, 
 but he is forced to admit that " there has been 
 less financial embarrassment in this than in any 
 other country." As the other governments 
 have redeemed in specie, does it not prove to 
 be true, what he attempts to deny, that the use 
 of an irredeemable paper money is beneficial. 
 
 We call particular attention to the remarka- 
 ble statement contained in the following ex- 
 tract. If it is true, then every statistical re- 
 port that has been published, as well as the 
 reports of the Agricultural Bureaus and socie- 
 
 ties, and those of railroad companies, etc., are 
 false ; for their statements and figures exhibit 
 a vast increase of production, freight, income, 
 etc., etc. He says : 
 
 Trade is to be uninterrupted — and money, 
 now considered scarce, will be found to be 
 abundant. The actual legitimate business of 
 the country is not larger than it was in 1860, 
 when 300,000,000 of coin and bank notes were 
 an ample circulating medium, and when an 
 addition of 50,000,000 would have made it ex- 
 cessive. 
 
 Any argument that requires the support of 
 such a statement to sustain it, must be baseless 
 indeed. 
 
 The following is equally fallacious : 
 An irredeemable currency is a financial dis- 
 ease which retards growth instead of encour- 
 , aging it; which stimulates speculation, but 
 diminishes labor. A healthy growth is to be 
 secured by the removal of the disease, and not 
 by postponing the proper treatment of it in 
 the expectation that the vigorous constitution 
 of the patient will eventually overcome it. 
 
 The Treasury notes vitalized every depart- 
 ment of trade and industry — excepting, per- 
 haps, the Treasury Department, which contains 
 several thousand drones drawing large salaries. 
 This Government money has paid for the build 
 ing of tens of thousands of steam engines and 
 locomotives, which are at this moment at work, 
 with millions and billions of iron hands, pro- 
 ducing wealth. 
 
 We cut the following article from the Trib- 
 zme, and which exhibits the activity and in- 
 crease of taxable wealth in a single city. 
 Hundreds of other well-authenticated state- 
 ments could be given to prove that the Secre- 
 tary has no correct idea of the basiness and 
 progress of the country, or that he makes these 
 statements from sinister motives. 
 
 GROWTH OF CHICAGO. 
 
 Chicago, which in 1831 contained only 12 
 families, has increased during the years 1860 
 to 1868 from a population of 109,263 to 220,000. 
 The assessed value of its real and personal 
 property has increased during the same period 
 from $37,053,512 to $192,249,644, while the 
 municipal taxation has risen from $373,315 to 
 $2,489,245. Since the war began, Chicago has 
 paid $24,628,392 taxes to the Federal Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 During the past year the city has paid $2,- 
 569,035 for public improvements, has built 14^ 
 miles of sewer, paved 29 miles of street, five 
 
THE REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. 
 
 21 
 
 of tliem with Nicolson pavement, which was 
 invented and first applied in Chicaoro, where 
 the first Isicolson pavements ever laid, now 
 some 13 years old, are still in good preserva- 
 tion. It is estimated that during? the past year 
 7,000 buildiniTS have been erected, at a total 
 cost of $8,000,000. This is fewer than were 
 erected in 1866, but the difference is more than 
 compensated in the great value of many of the 
 blocks and buildings erected during the last 
 year, viz.: 
 
 Erected at a cost of $400,000 and upwards. . 2 
 
 At a cost of $200,000 and upward 2 
 
 At $150,000 and upward 4 
 
 At $100,000 and upward 5 
 
 At $8 ,000 and upward 1 
 
 At $50,000 and upward 3 
 
 At $25,000 and upward 25 
 
 At $15,000 and upward 27 
 
 At $10,000 and upward 35 
 
 The following figures represent the extent of 
 business done in ten leading lines : 
 
 Bushels of grain 59,740,000 
 
 Hogs packed 850,000 
 
 Cattle packed ."0.000 
 
 Lumber, lath, etc., feet 959,000,000 
 
 Dry goods (last year 40) $30,000,000 
 
 Groceries 35,000,000 
 
 Hardware 20,000.000 
 
 Boots and shoes 15,000,000 
 
 Clothing 10,000,000 
 
 Crockery 4,000,000 
 
 These foot up a total of about $206,000,000 
 for the wholesale trade in these articles alone ; 
 the total would swell to at least $230,000,000, 
 and the retail business would make another 
 $75,000,000, exclusive of the sales of liquors, 
 ale, and beer, giving a total of about $305,000,- 
 000 worth of commercial business for the year. 
 
 The receipts of the railroad systems exceed 
 twelve millions ; the receipts for amusements 
 were $583,850. 
 
 The manufactures for the year are set down 
 at $77,000,000. For a period of peace, such a 
 growth would be marvelous, and, during an 
 era of war, no city of past or present times 
 surpasses it. The growth of Brooklyn and of 
 New York has been enormous during the same 
 period. Throughout the Xorth, and especially 
 the West and Northwest, there has been a 
 steady, sound, and healthy growth, of which, 
 however, the growth of Chicago must be con- 
 ceded to be the magnificent and truly unprece- 
 dented culmination. 
 
 With such an array of facts as this editorial 
 presents it is astonishing that any person who 
 has any regard for truth and consistency, 
 should depreciate the currency which has 
 been the chief agent in stimulating such 
 wonderful growth. 
 
 Cl-Qvernor Fenton in his late message says : 
 
 There is a natural and just solicitude as to 
 the ability of the State to sustain the burdens 
 resting upon it, and in regard to the continued 
 ease with which taxation has so far been borne. 
 It is apprehended in some quarters that there 
 are financial trials impending which will prove 
 far more severe than any in the past. It seems 
 to me that there is only required a prudent 
 economy in all matters pertaining to the ad- 
 micistration of government, and a thorough 
 revision of the whole tax and assessment sys- 
 tem to vindicate a reasonable expectation' of 
 our continued prosperity. Our wealth and our 
 resources are so vast that no reasoning founded 
 upon our past condition during periods of great 
 public indebtedness, is directly applicable 
 now. Material wealth in every form has im- 
 mensely increased. This is conspicuously true 
 of New York, as it is of a great area over 
 which new States are forming. As a fair 
 measure of this advance, it will be seen that 
 the New York City Banks in Nov^^mber, 1860, 
 as represented by their loans, conducted a bus- 
 iness of one hundred and twenty-two millions 
 of dollars, and at the same date in 1867, the 
 volume ot their loans was nearly two hundred 
 and forty-eight mi lions of dollars, or more 
 than double the business of 1860. Hardly 
 less significant, if not in so great a ratio, is 
 the edvance, in most departments of business 
 and enterprise, as will be found by reference 
 to the tables of commerce and tonnage ; rail- 
 road and insurance capital ; mercantile, man- 
 ufacturing and mechanical employments, and 
 the value of real and personal estate. 
 
 This furnishes positive proof of the rapid in- 
 crease of wealth created by the use of an irre- 
 deemable Government currency, and utterly 
 demolishes the statement of the Secretary of 
 the Treasury. It is noticeable that Governor 
 Fenton, being in fear of the New York capi- 
 talists, dare not recommend the continued use 
 
 and expansion of the United States money 
 
 that imparted the ability to the State and 
 people to sustain themselves in meeting enor- 
 mous taxation. 
 
 The Secretary makes the following declara- 
 tion : 
 
 Money is in demand at the present time, 
 not so much to move crops as to hold them— ^ 
 not to bring them at reasonable pricts within 
 the reach of consumers, but to withhold them 
 from market until a large advance of prices 
 can be established. Let the great staples of 
 the country come forward and be sold at mar- 
 ket prices at such prices as, while the producer 
 is fairly remunerated, will increase consump- 
 tion and exports. 
 
 This paragraph is well calculated to deceive 
 
22 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 the untliouglitful. We are told that " the de- 
 mand for money is not so much to purchase 
 crops as to hold them." 
 
 Suppose a speculator — all merchants who 
 deal in provisions, grain, etc., are " specula- 
 tors " — borrows one million of dollars to pur- 
 chase grain, etc.. on speculation ? The money 
 is paid out to farmers, and circulates freely 
 through the community, making money plenty 
 and decreasing the demand. If he holds the 
 grain till doomsday, it would not increase the 
 demand for money. If he held it until his 
 note became due, and the bank renewed it^Jio 
 amount of money would be disturbed. If the 
 bank refused to accommodate him, he would 
 be obliged to sell to pay the bank. The bank 
 that received the money would loan it to 
 others. Thus we perceive that the " specula- ! 
 tor" instead of making money scarce, in- j 
 creased the circulation. | 
 
 The operation, would, perhaps, increase the ! 
 price of grain a few cents per bushel, and ben- | 
 efit the farmers to that extent. But the fact | 
 is, that the foreign markets make the price of | 
 flour and grain. The grain crop of the United 
 States is so enormous, that no combination of ' 
 speculators can control it or the price. It will 
 vary with prices current in Europe, in spite of 
 the efforts of speculators to make the price. 
 
 The balance of his argument as quoted 
 above is simply ridiculous. This is one of the 
 Secretary's hobbies. He imagines it is the 
 duty of the Government to make money scarce, 
 and consequently to reduce the price of cot- 
 ton, tobacco, pork, flour, grain, cheese, etc., 
 etc., in order to " increase exports," to make 
 the United States " a good place to purchase 
 in." No man of common intelligence can be 
 made to believe that farmers and planters will 
 raise wheat and cotton more readily for one 
 dollar per bushel than they will for two dol- 
 lars, or cotton at ten cents per pound than 
 they will at 20 or 30 cents per pound — is ar- 
 rant nonsense. Suppose Congress should in- 
 crease the currency two hundred millions of 
 dollars, and the premium on gold advanced 20 
 per cent., and wheat that now sells at Chi- 
 cago for $2 per bushel, and in New York at 
 |2 50, should command |3 and $3 50, what 
 
 would be the effect on exports ? Experience 
 teaches it would increase them. The greatest 
 rush of American produce, grain, provisions, 
 lumber, etc., to Europe and South America 
 was in those months when the premium on 
 gold was the highest. The statistics prove 
 this. The increase of the currency value is 
 not only an inducement to sell and ship 
 produce and manufactured articles, but 
 to increase the quantity manufactured and 
 raised. 
 
 The planter and farmer, if he is certain of 
 good prices, will purchase bone dust, phos- 
 phate, guano, etc., and also increase the num- 
 ber of acres planted ; but low prices, as under 
 the " healthy " administration of Pierce, Bu- 
 chanan, & Co., when corn was sold for fuel, and 
 public soup houses were opened to keep our 
 workmen from starvation, discourage enter- 
 prise, and farmers become dilatory, and pro- 
 duction, as well as consumption, is enormously 
 reduced. There have been worse calamities 
 than a high premium for gold. 
 
 Mr. McCuUoch has been seduced by the Eng- 
 lish writers, if not by baser motives, to believe, 
 and it requires no argument to prove it. If you 
 manufacture or raise productions very cheap 
 you can undersell your neighbors. But as 
 this requires cheap labor, and as cheap labor 
 involves poverty and pauperism, it is not 
 suited for the free and intelligent people of the 
 United States who propose to reward industry 
 and elevate the laborers. Ojie of the most 
 noticeable omissions or characteristics of the 
 Secretary's Report is, there is no plea made or 
 sympathy exhibited for producers. When it is 
 remembered that nine-tenths of the population 
 are, either from choice or necessity, employed 
 in industrial pursuits, this is suggestive. There 
 is no recommendation to reduce the high rate 
 of interest, which is the curse of the country, 
 a simoon that blasts every green and beautiful 
 thing, and swallows up the earnings of the 
 people. The only economy he recommends is 
 to destroy the people's money, reduce the rate 
 of wages and the price of produce, and stop 
 all improvements by the government, how- 
 ever necessary and profitable. 
 
 The following extract from the report ex- 
 
THE REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. 
 
 23 
 
 hibits tlie Secretary's feelings in regard to tlie 
 planters and farmers : 
 
 Xext to the Stock Board of tlie commercial 
 metropolis, the opposition to the policy of con- 
 traction has been most decided in those sec- 
 tions where, by reason of short crops, the peo- 
 ple have been less prosperous than heretofore. 
 Unfortunately, in the same sections, the har- 
 vest has been again unsatisfactory, and the de- 
 mand, not only for a cessation of contraction, 
 but for an increase of paper money, may thus ■ 
 be more pressing than ever. This demand, no ; 
 matter from what quarter it comes, or by what I 
 interest sustained, should, iu the opinion of the 
 Secretary, be inflexibly resisted by Congress. . . i 
 
 Throughout a considerable portion of the , 
 best grain-growing sections of the United 
 States there has been, during the past year, 
 great complaint of a scarcity of money, and 
 yet no single article of agricultural product, 
 except wool, was to be sold there for which 
 there was not a purchaser at more than remu- \ 
 nerating, if not exorbitant, prices. j 
 
 We leave the planters and farmers to answer [ 
 as to " the exorbitant prices " that they are ! 
 receiving. But wish to call particular atten- j 
 tion to the price and article of icool, which, it j 
 appears, is sufficiently cheap to please him. j 
 The argument that is most frequently used by , 
 the destructionists, that " a redundant inflated ! 
 currency inflated prices." I 
 
 Wool and mutton are staple articles, and are 
 selling at such extremely low prices as to make 
 it a ruinous business to keep or raise sheep. 
 If the Secretary's theory is correct, that a 
 " plethoric currency " " enhances prices," how 
 can he account for the great depression in the 
 woollen and wool business. 
 
 Coal is another article in common use, and 
 is selling at the present time for less than one- ■ 
 half the price that it brought when there was j 
 a much larger amount of currency in cir- , 
 culation that there is at the present time. | 
 
 Cotton, a staple article and one of "the com- 
 modities of common life," has been regularly { 
 falling in price with the contraction of the cur- j 
 rency. ! 
 
 If there is truth that can be demonstrated | 
 by facts, it is, if there was not a good demand I 
 for the produce of the Northern agriculturists ' 
 in Europe, and our farmers and the South- i 
 ern planters were not protected ly tlie premium \ 
 on gold, the farming interests would be ruined. ! 
 If the grain and provision markets were as dull 
 
 and inactive as the wool market, it would be a 
 calamity that would prostrate the credit and 
 bankrupt the nation. We warn the destruction- 
 ists, if they ruin the business and depress values, 
 as proposed by the Secretary and his friends, 
 there will be a revolution in financial and po- 
 litical affairs that can only be described in the 
 mystical language of the Apocalypse. 
 
 If we are dependent on the foreign market 
 what is the remedy ? There is only one — pro- 
 tection. We must build up or create a market 
 at home. If it is asked how this is to be ac- 
 complished, we answer, protect American man- 
 ufactures and supply the people with a cheap 
 and ample circulating medium, and vigorously 
 proceed with business and improvements. 
 
 Cheap money, " inflation " as it is called, en- 
 ables the people to make large purchases. 
 Consumption must be encouraged, if produc- 
 tion is to be profitable and business active. 
 
 Why is there such a limited demand for 
 wool and woollens, or rather why are the sales 
 so limited? Millions of men and boys are 
 obliged to wear their old clothes this Winter 
 and suffer by cold, and other millions of women 
 and girls are obliged to dispense with warm 
 cloaks and woollens, because the miserable pol- 
 icy of contraction was forced upon the people, 
 holding in its deadly coils the business and 
 manufacturing interests. Mr. Wells, in his 
 report, calls it " painful," yet recommends the 
 painful business to proceed. 
 
 The store-houses are full to overflowing with 
 wool ; hundreds of mills are idle, or running 
 on short time ; tens of thousands of spinners 
 and weavers are out of employ ; the peo- 
 ple are only half clad ; those who have 
 money fear the effects of contraction and hoard 
 their means, and those who have no work and 
 no money cannot purchase ; and thus we see 
 one of the most important interests of the 
 country going to ruin from the mistaken poli- 
 cy of contraction. 
 
 If, as the destructionists allege, that "infla- 
 tion " increases the premium on gold, it is for- 
 tunate that just in proportion as the premium 
 is increased, protection is increased, for it has 
 precisely the same effect as a tariff, and at the 
 same time increases the pay of agriculturists. 
 
 It is charged that the letters of Messrs. Ste- 
 
OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 vens and Butler will prevent the further sale of 
 the United States Bonds in Europe. If they 
 do, it will be fortunate, and if we could fright- 
 en the holders in Europe, or induce them by 
 other means to remit the $300,000,000 of those 
 they have, and draw the $300,000,000 of gold 
 the President says is lying idle, it would be 
 more fortunate still ; but this is as improbable 
 as the argument of the contraction ists, who 
 say if we resume specie payments, $300,000,000 
 will be added to the circulation — that is, the 
 people who refuse to sell their gold at 40 per 
 cent, premium will readily sell it at par. The 
 fact is, there is no such amount of coin in the 
 country. The Secretary affirms : 
 
 The prices of most kinds of property in the 
 United States advanced near three-fold during 
 the war, but this advance was mainly the re- 
 sult of the increase of the circulating medium, 
 and in reality only indicated its depreciation. 
 The purchasing power of the money in circu- 
 lation was diminished in the ratio that its vol- 
 ume was increased. The farmer, for example, 
 received $3 a bushel for his wheat, but, except 
 for the payment of his debts, these $3 were of 
 no more value to him than $1 was before the 
 suspension of specie payments. The same was 
 true of other kinds of property and of labor. 
 The advance, except so lar as it was the result of 
 an increased demand, was apparent only and un- 
 real. The same cause is sustaining prices at the 
 present time, and will continue to do so as long 
 as the cause exists, but the advantages result- 
 ing from it are merely imaginary, while the 
 evils are positive and actual. 
 
 Those who sold their farms and property and 
 converted them into gold-bearing bonds, and 
 those who have been enabled to build new 
 dwellings, factories, stores — as hundreds of 
 thousands of people have — and the laborers 
 who have added tens of millions to their de- 
 posits in the savings banks, or been assisted to 
 purchase farms, houses and lots, etc., know how 
 to value such statements. 
 
 The man that attempts to prove that the 
 loyal States have not immensely improved in 
 wealth since the circulation of irredeemable 
 currency, is an object of pity or derision. Rhode 
 Island may be an exception ; thaX State was 
 about finished before the war, and almost every 
 house was, or contained, a bank, and it is notori- 
 ous that the capitalists and snobs settling in 
 Newport killed that beautiful watering place. 
 
 The farmer that could scarcely pay hit* taxes 
 
 with wheat at 75 cents per bushel, at $2 has 
 become independent and has surrounded him- 
 self with carriages, improved machinery, tools, 
 books, etc., etc.. giving employment to artisans, 
 mechanics, laborers, etc., who have been able, 
 in turn, to purchase more and better clothing, 
 food, etc., giving life and activity to trade and 
 commerce. Mr. McCulloch and the million- 
 aires pronounce this unfortunate, extravagant, 
 and demoralizing. 
 
 It is a hard lesson for some men to learn, but 
 learn it they must, that increased circulation of 
 Government money increases the demand for 
 all descriptions of property ; and demand is cer- 
 tain to stimulate production, and production 
 adds to the wealth of the nation and the wel- 
 fare of the population. These plain truths 
 cannot be ridiculed out of existence or avoided 
 by rhetorical sentences or fine speeches. 
 
 Gold and silver, as the only legal tender for 
 the payment of debts, is adapted for aristocratic 
 governments ; but is incompatible with the 
 success of free institutions, which to be success- 
 ful must be administered for the welfare of the 
 laboring classes. No wise or beneficent gov- 
 ernment will allow panics in the money mar- 
 ket, which curtail business, compel idleness, 
 create dissipation and dissatisfaction. If capi- 
 talists or banks are allowed to demand specie, 
 they can at pleasure, and for selfish and base 
 purposes, by suddenly expanding or contract- 
 ing loans, convulse the country and ruin men 
 and business, augmenting diflaculties and con- 
 trolling elections, and subverting free institu- 
 tions into engines of oppression. No country 
 can be permanently prosperous while capital- 
 ists have the power to reduce or increase the 
 values of property at pleasure. Some means 
 should be devised by which those having am- 
 ple security can obtain accommodations at a 
 just and equitable rate of interest, without the 
 sacrifice of their property. We are aware of the 
 nature of the objections that are made and the 
 difficulties that are supposed to exist in the 
 Government acting as banker we think that the 
 circumstances of our Government are such, and 
 will be for some years to come, as only to re- 
 quite it to pay off the 5-20 Bonds in Treasury 
 notes, and the difficulties we have considered 
 
THE REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. 
 
 25 
 
 would be avoided. It can make money cheap, 
 and should do so. 
 
 In the following we liave a specimen of the 
 sophistry of the English writers, who worship 
 the gold sovereign with as besotted an adora- 
 tion as the poor heathen that prostrates him- 
 self before a metallic god. The Secretary 
 adopts their arguments and says : " No sane 
 man supposes that his own wealth, or the 
 wealth of the nation, is increased by the de- 
 preciation of the standard by which it is meas- 
 ured. If the paper circulation of the United 
 States should be doubled during the next year, 
 and the prices of property should be likewise 
 doubled, would it be imagined that the real 
 value of property would be thus advanced ? 
 Or, if the paper currency should, during the 
 same period, be reduced fifty per cent., and 
 prices of property should decline correspond- 
 ingly, would it follow that the real value of 
 property would thus decline ? In the one case 
 the value of the currency would be reduced in 
 proportion to its increase in amount. In the 
 other, the currency would be increased in value 
 as it was diminished in amount. The increase 
 or decrease of prices would, if no counteract- 
 ing causes intervened, be the natural result of 
 the increase or decrease of the measure of 
 value, while real values remain unchanged." 
 
 The value of a piece of property cannot be 
 measured by the price it cost in gold, or would 
 sell at a forced sale, but by the amount of rent 
 it will produce. 
 
 The price or value of property is increased 
 or diminished in accordance to the demand for 
 it. If there is a short crop of wheat in En- 
 gland and France, it requires one-third more 
 gold to purchase food for the people ; the 
 amount, of course, will vary according to the 
 state of the crops in Germany, Russia, and in 
 the United States. The number of bushels 
 are not increased or diminished from what was 
 required the previous year ; there is no differ- 
 ence in the amount of nourishment in the 
 grain. Has the value of the grain changed, 
 or the value of gold ? 
 
 The price of productive property depreciates 
 in proportion to the increase of the value of 
 the dollar that measures it, and the value of 
 the dollar increases or diminishes according to 
 
 the rate of interest that it will command, and 
 therefore fluctuates whether it is a gold or pa- 
 per dollar. 
 
 Gold may be dispensed with — grain cannot. 
 If all the gold coin in the United States should 
 be shipped at once from the country, the prop- 
 erty of the country would not be decreased in 
 value, excepting to the extent of the value of 
 the gold. And if it was exchanged for its 
 value in our bonds held in Europe, the people 
 and Government would be benefitted. A house 
 and lot, or a farm, would be worth none the less 
 (probably more) because there were no gold dol- 
 lars in the country " to measure the value of 
 them," and some people of dull comprehension 
 would learn that we have dollars that " measure 
 values," and perhaps would consent that Con- 
 gress should authorize a sufiicient number of 
 these " measures " to measure and deliver all 
 the grain, produce, etc., etc., without waiting 
 to use their neighbor's measure, but pay or re- 
 ceive his pay without credit or delay. Waiting 
 to borrow a gold measure, when you can make 
 a better one, is evidence of imbecility. 
 
 It will be asked, how can we pay for impor- 
 tations ? We answer, with Government three 
 per cent, bonds and American produce. But 
 suppose they would not receive your green- 
 backs or three per cent, bonds? Then we 
 would keep them at home and be the more in- 
 dependent, and raise sufficient cotton, tobacco, 
 grain, cheese, etc., to purchase what we re- 
 quire. We can dispense with their brandies, 
 wines, cigars, pictures, fancy articles, etc., 
 which they are now forcing upon us and re- 
 ceiving gold-bearing six per cent, bonds at 
 about sixty cents on the dollar. If we should 
 refuse to trade with them on better terms, think 
 you that they would long refuse to exchange 
 their trash for three per cent, gold bonds, equal 
 in value and security to the British consols ? 
 Certainly they would not. 
 
 Other nations purchase of us only those arti- 
 cles that they are obliged to obtain ; on the con- 
 trary, we purchase hundreds of millions of 
 dollars in nominal value which we could bet- 
 ter do without. 
 
 Money is a creature of law ; therefore, the 
 Government should control the value of it, and 
 to a great extent the importations. To make 
 
26 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 money "and fix the value thereof" is the espe 
 cial duty of Congress. The mistake that is 
 made by intelligent persons is, they do not suf- 
 ficiently distinguish between money stamped 
 and bearing the seal of a great and rich nation 
 and the thing called money, but is not, issued 
 by corporations and individuals. 
 
 The Secretary of the Treasury professes to 
 fear that the nation will be ruined by " a re- 
 dundant currency." No nation was ever in- 
 jured by using a well-regulated currency issued 
 for legitimate purposes. But the want of an 
 ample circulating medium is the mother of 
 confasion and anarchy, and has been the cause 
 of hundreds of revolutions. The prime cause 
 of the Rebellion was poverty and distress 
 caused by the mismanagement, or rather no 
 management, of our financial affairs. The 
 great majority of planters and merchants in 
 the South were bankrupt. They knew that a 
 few men in the Northern and Eastern cities 
 were absorbing their earnings. The produc- 
 tions of the Southern States were consumed 
 by heavy commissions, freights and high rates 
 of interest. They supposed that the tariff 
 robbed them, when in reality this poverty was 
 caused by being deprived of a circulating me- 
 dium. If the times had been good, and the 
 people supplied with Government money, there 
 would have been no rebellion. Poverty breeds 
 discontent and civil wars. A Government that 
 fails to make the times good is not worth pre- 
 serving, and the political party, either Demo- 
 cratic or Republican, that allows distress from 
 want of work or want of means to prosecute 
 the industries of the nation, deserves to be de- 
 feated, and will be, no matter what its profes- 
 sions are. 
 
 The Secretary of the Treasury, as we charged 
 in the commencement of this chapter, has, to 
 the best of his abilities, endeavored to bring 
 odium upon his predecessors and upon Con 
 gress, as the following extracts from his report 
 prove : 
 
 The business of the country is involved in in- 
 extricable difficulties. But, although tlie issue 
 of these notes was limited, and we thus escaped 
 the disasters which would have overwhelmed 
 the country without such a limitation, it can 
 hardly be doubted that the resort to them was | 
 a misfortune. If this means of raising money 
 
 had not been adopted, bonds would have un- 
 doubtedly been sold at a heavy discount, but 
 the fact that they were thus sold, without de- 
 basing the currency, would have induced great- 
 er economy in the use of the proceeds, while 
 the discount on the bonds would scarcely have 
 exceeded the actual depreciation of the notes 
 
 below the coin standard 
 
 The financial evils under which the country 
 has been suffering for some years past, to say 
 nothing of the dangers which loom up in the 
 future, are, in a great degree, to be traced to 
 the direct issues by the Government of an in- 
 convertible currency with the legal attributes 
 of money. 
 
 A man that will publish such statements, in 
 view of the circumstances and past history of 
 the times, is unfit for any public station. 
 
 It is a fact beyond controversy, that there 
 was not sufficient money. Gold and State Bank 
 Bills, in the Cities of New York, Philadelphia 
 and Boston, to pay the expenses of the army 
 for sixty days. The Banks of New York were 
 so fearful of being called upon for specie, had 
 redeemed their circulation or reduced it to 
 eight millions of dollars. 
 
 Mr. Chase's worst enemies, if intelligent, will 
 confess that at the commencement of his ne- 
 gotiations with the Banks and Capitalists 
 he evinced wisdom and skill in his finan- 
 cial transactions with them. Being a Bul- 
 lionist from conviction, he had no true ap- 
 preciation of the power of Government mon- 
 ey. But he deserves the thanks of the country 
 for his manly and patriotic resistance to the 
 proposal of issuing long bonds. His arguments 
 in favor of short bonds were able and unanswer- 
 able, and proved he was a devoted friend to the 
 best interests of the people. 
 
 The attempt of Mr. McCuUoch to assail the 
 action of Mr. Chase and the wisdom of Con- 
 gress, is an exhibition of puny weakness and 
 imbecility attacking an impregnable position. 
 
 In giving a history of negotiating loans he 
 magnifies his own acts and says : 
 
 There was no time to try experiments or to 
 correct errors, if any had been committed, in 
 the kind of securities which had been put upon 
 the market. Creditors were importunate, the 
 unpaid requisitions in the Department were 
 largely in excess of the cash in the Treasury, 
 the vouchers issued to contractors for the neces- 
 sary supplies of the army and navy were being 
 sold at from 10 to 20 per cent discount — indi- 
 cating by their depreciation how uncertain was 
 the prospect of early payment. 
 
THE REPORT OF MR. WELLS, SPECIAL COMMISSIONER, Etc. 27 
 
 This proves his unfitness for the office he oc- 
 cupies. The army contractors and soldiers 
 were compelled to submit to 20 per cent, shave 
 on Government vouchers because the Secretary 
 was so stupid as to suppose that Treasury 
 notes were more valuable when borrowed from 
 capitalists than those paid out fresh from the 
 Treasury. In taking the next contracts to 
 supply the Government, these Contractors, of 
 course, added 20 per cent to their bids to cover 
 the loss in having their orders shaved. The 
 Secretary seems to suppose that no money 
 transactions are legitimate unless interest and 
 commissions are submitted to ; he is one of the 
 believers in the smart saying that " you cannot 
 get something for nothing." 
 
 While professing to be in favor of the strict- 
 est economy, he informed us that he has in- 
 creased the funded debt, the interest of which 
 is payable in gold, $686,584,800. The differ- 
 ence whether this is paid in gold or currency 
 will amount to a larger sum than Gen. Grant 
 can save by discharging officers, clerks, etc. 
 
 The pet economical measure of Mr. McCul- 
 loch is to redeem and fund the Treasury notes 
 and unfunded debt, amounting to $490,634,000, 
 which would increase the annual amount of 
 interest, to be shoveled out in gold, $29,436,585. 
 He, for the sake of economy, is endeavoring, to 
 his utmost, to get the entire debt into gold- 
 bearing bonds, which will enable the Treas- 
 ury agents to shovel out $150,000,000 in gold 
 per annum, to men who never paid a dollar 
 of gold into the Treasury. This is the man 
 whom the capitalists delight to flatter and 
 honor ; this is the man who writes eloquently, 
 and lectures Congress on their duty, to use the 
 strictest economy, and tells us about the demor- 
 alization and idleness of the people and of the 
 " exorbitant " prices of agricultural produce and 
 labor and of the " Redundant," " Plethoric," " In- 
 flated," " Degraded " currency. This is the man 
 who is recommending the issue of long bonds 
 at extravagant, ruinous rates of interest ; this 
 is the economist that, for political preferences 
 and purposes, allows the revenue to be de. 
 frauded of hundreds of millions of dollars annu- 
 ally by notorious scoundrels who are permitted 
 to escape conviction and punishment, although 
 their perjury and crime are well known to 
 
 the public. And yet we hear and see this man 
 puffed by Republican Senators and newspapers, 
 although he confessedly is working to thwart 
 the great Congressional Act of Reconstruction. 
 It is truly surprising to see Congressmen of 
 good standing in the Republican party endors- 
 ing the Secretary, when his statistical reports 
 prove that he is perfectly incapable of making 
 an estimate of the expenses of the Government 
 that is reliable, and those which he has sub- 
 mitted have proved to vary from the actual re- 
 ceipts and expenses, from one to over two hun- 
 dred millions of dollars. If the Republican 
 party in Congress consent to be ruled or ad- 
 vised by such a man as McCulloch, they will 
 be certain to be defeated at the coming elec- 
 tion, even with the great name of General 
 Grant as standard bearer. 
 
 Statesmen will soon learn that the financial 
 question is the great question of the day, and 
 must be met and decided in the interest of the 
 industrial and producing classes of society. 
 
 THE REPORT OF MR. WELLS, SPECIAL 
 COMMISSIONER OF THE REVENUE- 
 MR. SPINNER'S LETTER, PORTRAIT, 
 Etc. 
 
 It is one of the anomalies of the times to 
 have the officials of the Treasury Department 
 endeavoring to bolster up the policy of their 
 chief. Every calculation and prediction that 
 he or they have made in regard to the finances 
 have failed. It is amusing to watch them 
 attempting to evade the splendid results from 
 the use of the Treasury notes. Mr. Wells is 
 anxious to prove that the Nation is solvent 
 and able to raise sufficient revenue to liquidate 
 all claims, pay interest, etc. ; is obliged, for 
 the use of his argument, to acknowledge that 
 the country is in a most prosperous condition, 
 which is contradictory to the message and re- 
 port of his chiefs ; and to his own previous 
 predictions. He says : 
 
 It therefore appears that during the years 
 from 1861 to 1866 labor and commodities were 
 continually withdrawn from the productive 
 employments of peace to the destructive occu- 
 pations of war, and that the measure of this 
 unproductive diversion was in excess of seven 
 hundred and twelve millions per annum ; and 
 
28 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 yet during tlie continuance of all this drain 
 the Northern and Pacific States did not cease 
 to make a real proorress in the creation of sub- 
 stantial wealth. Thus, the ajjcrregate of the 
 Northern crops, measured in bulk or quantity, 
 and not in money, did not decrease, but in- 
 creased ; the area of territory placed under 
 cultivation was continually enlarged ; rail- 
 roads continued to be built, mines to be opened, 
 and mills, stores and dwellings to be erected. 
 
 How much more noble this gentleman would 
 appear if he had freely stated the simple facts 
 in the case, and confessed that he had been 
 happily disappointed ; that the use of the 
 Treasury money was as beneficial as the use 
 of gold ; and that, instead of diminishing pro- 
 duction and trade, as he had supposed it would, 
 that it has been the medium and agency that 
 has enabled the people to accomplish vast and 
 beneficial results. But instead of this, he en- 
 deavors to palliate his arguments. He informs 
 us : 
 
 In his previous report the commissioner, as 
 the result of a carefully-instituted and con- 
 ducted inquiry, was led to refer the abnormal 
 and unsatisfactory condition of the producing 
 interests of the country mainly to three agen- 
 cies, viz. : Scarcity of skilled labor, an irre- 
 deemable paper currency and unequal and 
 heavy taxation — the general resultant of all 
 which was seen in an unnatural condition of 
 high prices for both labor and commodities. 
 Subsequent and continued investigations have 
 aflforded no ground for questioning the accu- 
 racy of these conclusions ; but at the same 
 time it must be apparent to even the most 
 casual observer that things have not remained 
 stationary. 
 
 It is apparent that this statement does not 
 agree with the conclusions that he arrives at — 
 that the country is more prosperous than any 
 other. 
 
 After giving figures and statistics that show 
 that vast additions of wealth have accumulated, 
 he says : 
 
 Omitting any reference in detail to the 
 marked increase in the number of houses 
 erected during the past year — estimated by 
 good authorities to be greater than in any for- 
 mer year of our national existence — or to the 
 increase in the manufacture of agricultural 
 implements, salt, paper, edge tools, cutlery, 
 chains, and a variety of other articles, we will 
 cite but one other illustration, drawn from do- 
 mestic sources, of the financial strength of the 
 country. As has been already shown, the na- 
 tional expenditures, exclusive of appropriations 
 for the redemption of the public debt and for 
 interest, attained during the five years from 
 
 j 1861 to 18GG the extraordinary average of over 
 j seven hundred and twelve millions of dollars 
 I per annum ; to which must also be added the 
 
 great increase during the same period of State 
 
 and local expenditures. 
 
 This, we should suppose, would bo satisfac- 
 tory ; but the gentleman stultifies his own 
 statements, as follows : 
 
 The true theory of legislation under the 
 present condition of affairs would seem to be, 
 not to suspend or delay recovery — painful 
 though it may be — from abnormal prices and 
 over-production by further inflation, but that 
 relief should be afforded to the greatest extent 
 possible by the removal of taxes which impede 
 production — taxes which, when first imposed, 
 were drawn from profits, and were, therefore, 
 to a certain extent, justified, but which, with 
 the present reduction of values, fall mainly 
 upon capital. 
 
 How puerile is this double dealing to sustain 
 a false and ruinous theory. 
 
 He first proves that the country is in a high- 
 ly prosperous condition, and then he talks of 
 relief through the paivful process of contrac- 
 tion. 
 
 It will be observed that he charges inflation 
 with over production, which is a curse, and 
 recommends reduction of taxation, which im- 
 pedes productions, which are a blessing. "We 
 trust the time has about arrived when the pub- 
 lic servants and gentlemen who have any re- 
 gard for reputation will be constrained to write 
 and speak more in accordance with facts and 
 experience. 
 
 We give below a letter from Mr. Spinner, 
 whom the Secretary of the Treasury employs 
 to have his portrait put on the " fifty cents " 
 currency and his name printed on the Treasury 
 notes. This Government clerk writes as fol- 
 lows, and affords a good sample of the inso- 
 lence of the persons employed by the Govern- 
 ment : 
 
 Washington, Nov. 9, 1867. 
 Hon. E. G. Spaulding, Buffalo, N. Y. : 
 
 My Dear Sir : Your note of the 6th inst. 
 has been received. If some one who believes 
 in high-toned swindling will write in favor of 
 open repudiation, I will agree to give the sub- 
 ject the consideration of a careful reading, but 
 I "l have not the patience to read anything advo- 
 j eating the sneaking expedient of paying the 
 I national debt in depreciated currency. 
 I The Secretary of the Treasury is sound on 
 j the subject ; and his forthcoming report will 
 I address an argument to the Congress and th© 
 
IMMEDIATE RESUMPTION— THE COTTON TAX, Etc. 
 
 29 
 
 country that I am sure will please you and 
 those who are neither knaves nor fools. 
 
 The finance question is to become the lead- 
 in gf one in the organization of parties, and I 
 had hoped that such men as Butler and Stevens 
 would have remained with the great body of 
 their friends. Having an abiding faith in the 
 honesty of the people, I believe the question 
 will be settled honestly, and that honest Amer- 
 icans will be spared the shame of having their 
 nation stigmatized as a band of cheats and 
 swindlers. 
 
 Very truly, your friend, 
 
 F. E. Spinner. 
 
 Mr. McCuUoch reports that the prices of all 
 descriptions of agricultural produce is bring- 
 ing " exorbitant prices " excej)ting wool, and as 
 he is in favor of Congress using the " strictest 
 economy " in Government expenditures, we 
 recommend him to send a thousand of his able- 
 bodied clerks into the country to engage in the 
 healthy and highly remunerative business of 
 farming, and if those remaining cannot do the 
 business of the oflBce, to discharge them and 
 let out the contract. Almost any New York 
 merchant can do more work with two hun- 
 dred men and the same number of girls, and 
 there are any number of better-looking men than 
 Spinner that will hire or loan their face and 
 signature to the Government for a price that 
 will make a considerable saving. 
 
 It is rather curious that McCulloch has his 
 portrait on the one dollar hills, Spinner on the 
 fifty cent currency, and Lincoln on the twenty- 
 five cent currency, 
 
 IMMEDIATE RESUMPTION— THE COT- 
 TON TAX—" THE NIGGERS "—LONG 
 BONDS— STEVENS AND BUTLER, 
 Etc. 
 
 There is much speculation and a great diver- 
 sity of opinion expressed of what effects would 
 be produced by the immediate resumption of 
 specie payments. The writers have not taken 
 into consideration the vast difference it would 
 make in case we should (supposing it is possi- 
 ble) " resume now " or wait eighteen or twenty- 
 four months and force contraction, as is pro- 
 posed by the Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 The Americans, being a civilized people, 
 require or use but a very small amount of 
 gold ; they prefer Government paper money, 
 and would make but small drafts upon the 
 
 Treasury in case of resumption. But our 
 foreign merchants, and the foreign speculators 
 in our Government and State Bonds, would 
 cash them, and it is more than probable that 
 they would compel a fresh suspension, which 
 would derange the finances and prove disas- 
 trous. But it is not our object to speculate 
 upon what this effect would be, but to state 
 what effect would be produced by resumption, 
 supposing it to be possible, and providing it 
 could be maintained. 
 
 Bona fide\\ol^Qvs of Government Bonds, who 
 purchased them for permanent investment, 
 would not be benefitted by resumption. But 
 speculators, and especially those who are oper- 
 ating with European Bankers, would be im- 
 mensely benefitted ; and all merchants and 
 bankers who owe debts'outside of the United 
 States would in effect have them reduced 40 
 per cent. 
 
 Real estate, building materials, and labor 
 (excepting farm labor), would not be reduced, 
 as is generally believed, but would be increased 
 in price, SX.S there would be a larger amount 
 of money in circulation than there is at present. 
 Add one hundred or two hundred millions of 
 dollars in gold to the circulating medium, and 
 it would produce greater excitement and spec- 
 ulation than the same amount of greenbacks. 
 
 But cotton, tobacco, grain, lard, cheese, and 
 all articles of general export would be reduced 
 to very nearly the amount of the premium on 
 gold, as the foreign market governs the price 
 of produce that is extensively exported ; but 
 as there would be a larger amount of money 
 in circulation, there would be an increased 
 consumption of commodities, and would 
 slightly affect the European and home markets. 
 
 The " niggers " in the Georgia Convention 
 reason more closely than many of our public 
 men. Recently, when the cotton tax was up 
 for discussion, they refused to vote for a reso- 
 lution to rescind the tax, declaring if the two- 
 cent tax was taken off that they would not be 
 benefitted in the least, as cotton would sell for 
 two cents per pound less, and they were in 
 favor of making the foreign consumers pay a 
 portion of the expenses of the Government. 
 This was an excellent beginning for " nigger " 
 legislation, and encourages us to believe that 
 
80 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 when they or their representatives take their 
 places in Congress, they will discover — if they 
 have not already done so — that there is not a 
 " redundant currency." 
 
 The question for the people and Congress to 
 reflect upon — will it be judicious, providing 
 the Government is able to resume immediately, 
 or soon^ to decrease the price of cotton, tobacco, 
 grain, pork, cheese, etc., one-third of its value 
 in currency? Especially as it would, un- 
 doubtedly reduce the amount of exports. The 
 Secretary of the Treasury thinks our planters 
 and farmers will work more cheerfully and 
 sell more readily when prices are reduced 
 40 per cent, than they will at the present 
 "exorbitant prices." He possibly is very 
 learned in political economy, but he is certainly 
 Tery deficient in knowledge respecting the 
 present status of human nature. This is very 
 much like the character of the argument, 
 which affirms that real estate^ building mate- 
 rials, etc., would decline in price if one hundred 
 or two hundred millions of gold was added to 
 the volume of the circulating medium. 
 
 The reason why the capitalists wish the 
 bills of credit destroyed is to increase the 
 scarcity of money and the stringency of the 
 money market. The Secretary politely calls 
 it, " to increase the activity of money." 
 
 Our capitalists (excepting those engaged in 
 foreign trade and speculation, and those who 
 wish to pay their foreign drafts and save forty 
 per cent, of the amount, and realize the gold on 
 their bonds) desire to make money scarce and 
 dear. They require the Treasury notes to be 
 retired, to enable them to control the real- 
 estate and produce markets, and give them 
 the power to dictate terms to the Government 
 as formerly. Nothing short of this will satisfy 
 the money kings and merchant princes of 
 New York. The United States currency has 
 partially dethroned them. They have as 
 ardent love for temporal power as has the 
 Pope and Papacy. They are full of lamenta- 
 tions in prosperous times, and incessantly 
 predict calamity, which is their millennium. 
 
 At present they are raving like maniacs at 
 Stevens and Butler, because they propose 
 to pay the 5-20 bonds in the same description 
 of money that was received by the Government 
 and contractors for them. 
 
 The millionaires and their servitors were as 
 quiet as doves when the Government paid off 
 the soldiers, who, at the commencement of the 
 Rebellion and before the suspension of specie 
 payments, enlisted for the war and have fol- 
 lowed *' the dear old flag " through the frosts 
 of several Winters and the malaria and fevers 
 of Southern Summers, through the smoke, fire 
 and blood of more than one hundred dreadful 
 battles. They contracted for twelve dollars 
 per month to conquer or die. They tramped 
 the weary and fearful rounds on the lonely and 
 distant pickets, amid the dark, rain, and sleet* 
 through the thick morasses and over the moun- 
 tains of every Southern State, storming in- 
 trenchments and braving death in every form, 
 to save the Union. These men were the sal- 
 vation of our priceless liberty and beloved 
 country. They had no powerful friends, when 
 they were honorably discharged, to demand 
 gold for them. 
 
 But the great contractors, who furnished 
 shoddy clothing and paper-soled shoes for our 
 braves to fight in, and the millionaires who 
 rolled in luxuries and ease during those fearful 
 times, and the foreign merchants and specula- 
 tors that filled the country with costly wines, 
 brandies, cigars, silks, satins, etc., etc., at ex- 
 travagant prices, and received their pay and 
 enormous profits in Five-twenty bonds at 
 thirty-five, forty, fifty and sixty cents on the 
 dollar, and who have been allowed to rob the 
 United States Treasury of over $300,000,000 of 
 gold received as interest, which gold, if it had 
 been retained in the vaults of the Treasury, as 
 justice, economy and sound policy dictated, 
 would have enabled the Government to circu- 
 late $1,000,000,000 of Treasury notes and kept 
 them at par with specie and sold its bonds, 
 |1,500,000,000 in amount, at three per cent. 
 Facts and common sense teach this, and all the 
 sophisms and blatant jabber of the contraction- 
 ists cannot disprove it. 
 
 The capitalists at first dictated a 13 per cent, 
 loan, then 7.30, then six per cent, bonds, inter- 
 est payable in gold, and now they have the 
 impudence to ask Congress to pass an act that 
 their bonds shall be paid in gold, even if it 
 commands 100 per cent, premium. And when 
 the patriotic Butler questions the propriety, he 
 is posted as " a knave " or " a fool." And when 
 
IMMEDIATE RESUMPTION— THE COTTON TAX, Etc. 
 
 31 
 
 the Old Man Eloquent, one of the best and 
 purest men that ever stood up in Parliament or 
 deliberative assembly to defend " the right," 
 when glorious, incorruptible Old Thad. Ste- 
 vens stands with one foot in Congress and one 
 on his grave, to protect the public and protest 
 against such gross injustice, the footmen and 
 servants of the millionaires brand this great 
 and good man " a scoundrel " or " an imbecile." 
 The thunders of excommunication from the 
 "Vatican scarcely exceed the wrath of these men. 
 
 The capitalists having " fixed " the leaders 
 of both the political parties in New York on 
 the question of the 5-20 bonds, are now work- 
 ing together to obtain an act of Congress to 
 authorize a forty or fifty year six per cent, 
 loan. These men are too wise not to sec that 
 the immense and increasing product of gold 
 and silver is rapidly reducing its purchasing 
 power. They are fully aware that the money 
 markets of the Old World are already glutted 
 with the precious metals, and the value or in- 
 terest is decreasing, and this is the reason why 
 they are so extremely anxious for an issue of 
 long bonds now. 
 
 If the Congress of the United States author- 
 ize an issue of long bonds bearing a greater 
 rate of interest than three per cent., they will 
 be accessory to a stupendous fraud and will de. 
 serve and receive the condemnation of two 
 generations of people. Nothing could be so 
 abominable, stupid and wicked as to authorize 
 the negotiation of $2,000,000,000 or $2,500,000,- 
 000 in five or six per cent, bonds. Under the 
 circumstances, it would be complete political 
 suicide to the party in power and plant the 
 seeds that would bring forth agitation, repudi- 
 ation and anarchy. 
 
 Insure the great capitalists of New Yor^ 
 that their Government bonds are all safe and 
 drawing six per cent, interest, and they will be 
 as cool and placid as a Summer lake, and dur- 
 ing the fierce political contest that is approach- 
 ing these aristocratic Republicans and Demo- 
 crats will make liberal donations to their re- 
 spective parties and laugh as the strife goes on, 
 and swear that the^e fellows are only fighting 
 for office, and suppose that the people are as 
 destitute of principle as they are themselves, 
 who do not care a rush whether the " niggers " 
 
 vote or not. Their only concern is that the 
 " Jionor " of the Government is not tarnished 
 by refusing to pay gold for bonds purchased 
 by them at thirty-five to sixty per cent, dis- 
 count. Gold is their God, general prosperity 
 their abomination, and universal suffrage is 
 demoralization, and freedom a myth. 
 
 Congress should issue $1,500,000,000 in forty 
 or fifty year three per cent, bonds and direct 
 the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase with 
 Treasury notes $200,000,000 or $300,000,000 per 
 year of interest-bearing Government securities 
 and cancel them, and make it obligatory on 
 the National Banks to exchange their six per 
 cent, bonds for the three per cents, or close 
 their institutions, and allow the holders of the 
 Five-twenty bonds to exchange them for three 
 per cents or pay them in currency or gold when 
 due, as best suited the interests of the Gov. 
 ernment. And if Congress would authorize 
 the Secretary, under proper regulations, to 
 loan the Southern States during the next two 
 years $200,000,000, at three per cent., to 
 make new levees, etc., our financial difficulties 
 would be dissolved. 
 
 There is complaint of short crops and pov- 
 erty in the South, but considering the conquest 
 and devastation of that country by the North- 
 ern army, the destruction of property by floods 
 and drouth, and the army worm, and especial- 
 ly when we reflect upon the limited amount of 
 circulating medium, money, and the ruinous 
 rates paid for it, it is indeed wonderful that 
 they have been ab'.e to produce such a vast 
 amount of produce as they have. And it re- 
 flects great honor upon the white and colored 
 population, and proves beyond question, with 
 the exception of a few noisy men, the people 
 have been remarkably industrious, and that it 
 only requires a full and free circulation of 
 money at cheap rates to make the whole South 
 more productive and prosperous than ever. 
 
 The great panacea for confusion and anarchy 
 and their attendant difficulties is cheap money. 
 Cheap money would double and treble the 
 amount of Southern produce, and double and 
 treble the demand for every description of man- 
 ufactured goods, Ftimulating every branch of 
 industry in the whole country and immensely 
 benefitting the whole pe:?ple and the Govern- 
 
32 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 ment. A few thousand drones, who live on 
 the interest of money, would make a great 
 clamor, but this would soon be drowned by the 
 music and hum of millions of people engaged 
 in active industry resounding through all the 
 arteries of trade and commerce. 
 
 THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE REPORT 
 —THE DECLINE OF SHIP BUILDING, 
 Etc, 
 
 The New York Chamber of Commerce have 
 published a report on the National Finances, 
 which has been sent to Congress. It recom- 
 mends resumption of specie payments, con- 
 traction of the currency, economy ; and speaks 
 touchingly of the extravagance and demoral- 
 ization of the people, the decline of ship build- 
 ing, etc. 
 
 We look in vain in this report for any 
 recommendation to reduce the rate of interest, 
 or any scheme to open new fields of enterprise 
 to increase the production of cotton and the 
 great staples of commerce. They have no 
 word of condemnation of the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, who, previous to the close of the Re- 
 bellion, had at his disposal several hundred 
 millions of dollars' worth of Southern produc- 
 tions, taken at Savannah, Mobile, and in other 
 Southern cities, who, when the price of cotton 
 was from one to two dollars per pound in Liver- 
 pool, shipped it to New York, where it was 
 almost consumed by storage, commission, and 
 by fire, instead of forwarding it to Europe and 
 drawing the gold for it, as the interest of the 
 Treasury demanded. Perhaps the committee 
 did not broach this question, for fear that some 
 of the very respectable Chamber of Commerce 
 men owned the ships and stores and storage 
 houses which eat up the most of this cotton, 
 tobacco, rice, turpentine, etc. 
 
 They endorse the Secretary, who advises 
 Congress to place the public debt into long six 
 per cent, bonds, fastening twenty-five hundred 
 millions of millstones around the necks of the 
 people and casting them into the sea of finan- 
 cial difficulties, disabilities and liabilities from 
 which they could not be rescued, except by 
 revolution, or by its twiu brother — repudi- 
 ation. 
 
 If they can accomplish this great economi- 
 cal measure it would give the bondholders 
 about nine hundred millions profit on their 
 bonds; and in the present and prospective 
 plethoric state of the European money market, 
 if the financial question can be kept out of 
 politics and both parties whipped in to acqui- 
 escence by the capitalists, these six per cent, 
 long bonds would within twelve or eighteen 
 months be selling at thirty per cent, premium, 
 adding say seven hundred and fifty millions of 
 dollars to their value. This is the reason why 
 we see bo much straining at gnats and swal- 
 lowing camels " in these last days. 
 
 To one who is acquainted with the habits of 
 the great majority of the gentlemen who com- 
 pose that solemn conclave, the Chamber of 
 Commerce, the following extract from the 
 report is exceedingly comical : 
 
 It is at the same time true that enterprise 
 within our own borders is kept in check by the 
 very high cost of labor and materials that en- 
 ter into the construction of storehouse and 
 dwelling, and it is to be feared that the char- 
 acter and security of both will be slighted 
 because of the enhanced expenses and the 
 danger of depreciation. It would not be diffi- 
 cult to trace much of the demoralization that 
 exists throughout our community to habits of 
 idleness and extravagance, w^hicli have been 
 engendered by a too free circulation of paper 
 money. 
 
 The demoralization, " idleness and extrav- 
 agance which have been engendered by the 
 too free circulation of paper money," this, to 
 one who understands that these men reside 
 in splendid and luxurious palaces, and sport 
 magnificent equipages, dazzle with diamonds, 
 purchase $500 kerchiefs and $5,000 shawls, 
 give costly feasts, own opera boxes, etc. ; and 
 that these merchant princes have agents 
 searching the world for curiosities of art and 
 novelties in fashion to import for the gratifi- 
 cation of these exquisite and select set, who 
 live deliciously every day, clothed in stuffs 
 that rival " purple and fine linen," which is 
 too cheap and common for the use of the 
 Pharisees and Sadducees of this age. To hear 
 these men mouth words about extravagance 
 and " inflation " is truly an episode of rare 
 " redundancy." 
 
 In the extract we have quoted, they deplore 
 
THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE REPORT, Etc. 
 
 33 
 
 the high price of labor, etc. In the one we 
 give below, they show a tender regard for the 
 working classes. Hear them : 
 
 It is the opinion of the committee that the 
 return to specie payments will affect the in- 
 terests of the great mass of the people ; the 
 mechanics, the agriculturists, the laborers, 
 and the poor of every class, more favorably 
 than those of the rich. 
 
 But what appals them most is the knowledge 
 that there is but one corrective. Hear them 
 again : 
 
 There is but one corrective, and that a 
 speedy return to a specie basis. The reasons for 
 this are believed to be sufficiently manifest from 
 a brief contemplation of the evil consequences 
 involved in the suspension of specie payments. 
 These were forseen when the first bill making 
 Treasury notes a " legal tender " was before 
 Congress ; and the strongest argument then 
 urged against their issue in this form, was the 
 danger in view of which those who advanced 
 their capital to the country in time of its ut- 
 most need, now stand appalled — the danger of 
 increased issues. There is but one j ustification, 
 then, and it was found not in the letter of the 
 Constitution, but in the necessities of the war. 
 
 In another paragraph they inform the pub- 
 lic — which is very kind in the committee — that 
 the country is just escaping from an " abyss." 
 
 To this policy Congress has hitherto ren- 
 dered loyal support, and to this, it is to be 
 hoped, despite all efforts to the contrary, it 
 will continue to be true. The malign influ- 
 ence that is relied on to plunge the country 
 once more into the abyss from which it is just 
 escaping, is said to be most strongly developed 
 in the West. 
 
 We had supposed that the Rebellion was an 
 " abyss," and that the Government money was 
 the grand agent that prevented the catastro- 
 phe of the Union being destroyed. When this 
 committee report that improvements and 
 building, etc., has been kept in check by the 
 issue of greenbacks, they sanction a statement 
 that every intelligent person in the country 
 knows to be positively untrue. 
 
 The great public have never before been so 
 constantly and profitably employed as they 
 have since the issue of the Treasury notes ; the 
 whole land is filled with monuments of indus- 
 try that attest this incontrovertible truth. 
 
 The contraction of the currency, last Sum- 
 mer and Fall, and threats of resuming specie 
 payments, gave a severe check to enterprise, 
 5 
 
 trade and manufactures, and business is par- 
 tially paralyzed. It is a disgrace that the 
 metropolis of the country contain a large body 
 of influential and respectable men, claiming 
 to be the representatives of trade and com- 
 merce, who misrepresent the industrial classes 
 and the real situation of affairs. 
 
 We cannot exhibit the inconsistencies of 
 these men more graphically than by quoting 
 a few more of their contradictory statements. 
 The report says : 
 
 Your committee feel that this Chamber 
 should protest against any further debasement 
 of our National currency ; against the initia- 
 tion of the novel mode suggested of paying 
 the public debt ; and lift up its voice in lavor 
 of a speedy resumption of specie payments, 
 which will consign to oblivion all adverse and 
 unworthy financial expedients 
 
 It is wiser and more manly to accept with- 
 out unnecessary delay the remedy for our 
 financial ills which time and experience have 
 proved efficacious, rather than to live in per- 
 petual fear of the temporary suffering it will 
 cause. Contraction doubtless means a reduc- 
 tion of prices, and a curtailment of moneyed 
 facilities, but it points to one medium of pay- 
 ment, and resumption will put at rest many 
 disquieting suggestions in regard to the public 
 debt. 
 
 It will be observed that they are obliged to 
 acknowledge " tJiat contraction doubtless means 
 contraction of prices ; " and then say : 
 
 The farmer will get more for what he sells, 
 and pay more for what he buys ; the old debt 
 may be canceled with ease, to be replaced with 
 another of enlarged dimensions. 
 
 The greatest simpleton in the country can- 
 not fail to detect the false statements and the 
 contradictions contained in these sentences. 
 To strip them of their verbiage, they mean just 
 this : Or the result of their theory if adopted, 
 would be to increase the gold value of the 
 United States Bonds, mostly held by the mem- 
 bers of the Chamber of Commerce and their 
 friends, eight or nine hundred millions of dol- 
 lars, and to decrease the price of the property 
 held by traders, manufacturers, planters, 
 farmers, etc., eight or nine thousand millions of 
 dollars, a sum sufficient to pay the whole 
 public debt if it was trebled. 
 
 The price of all descriptions of American 
 produce that has a foreign demand is made by 
 the price it commands in the foreign market ; 
 
34 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 consequently tlie reduction would be equal to tlie 
 premium on gold, or forty per cent. The planters 
 and farmers can calculate with, accuracy what 
 resumption of specie payments would cost them. 
 
 The most plausible argument that the con- 
 tractionists have been able to advance, and 
 which is referred to in the report under con- 
 sideration, is, that " the high price of mfrterials 
 and labor has ruined the business of ship- 
 building," and, as they appeal to national 
 pride, they carry public sentiment with them 
 to a considerable extent. It cannot be ex- 
 pected, when the Government is constantly 
 selling steamers and sailing vessels at auction 
 at one half of their cost, that the business of 
 building of ships would be prosperous. But 
 we will concede, for the sake of the argument, 
 that " the high prices for labor, etc., has ruined 
 the business of building ships." Mr. Blaine, 
 the gentleman from Maine, who is a contrac- 
 tionist, and the Committee of the Chamber of 
 Commerce, declare that the wages demanded 
 by our ship carpenters are so high that we 
 cannot compete with the workmen of England, 
 They talk of the glory of our country depart- 
 ing, etc. We declare, and we hope and trust, 
 that there will never be another ship built in 
 the United States, if the builders are compelled 
 to work for the miserable wages paid to work- 
 men in Europe. 
 
 The naval architects, mechanics and ma- 
 chinists of our country can beat the world in 
 modelling and constructing ships, from an 
 iron-clad down to a scull boat. If the Chamber 
 of Commerce men want really fine ships, and 
 are willing to purchase them at rates that 
 will fully reward the builders, they can have 
 them made to order or do without. The ships 
 and boats for inland navigation, and " steam 
 palaces," will, of course, be built, if the capi- 
 talists pay for them, and they will, for of these 
 we have the monopoly. It is a happy circum- 
 stance if the Government continues the use of 
 Treasury notes ; the ship carpenters will find 
 full employment in the future, as they have in 
 the past five years, in building houses, stores, 
 hotels, churches, opera houses, colleges, etc. 
 
 But it is the duty of Congress to see to it, 
 that our ship builders are protected against 
 
 the half-paid labor of Europe ; and our states- 
 men will soon be compelled to devise means 
 to protect them, and increase the rewards of 
 labor ; and not only to shield our workmen 
 from the competition of the pauper labor of 
 Europe, but against the exactions of our 
 " merchant princes." The aristocratic states- 
 man that would degrade and pauperize our 
 laborers to such a degree that they can under- 
 sell the half-famished mechanics of England 
 and France will soon be required to retire 
 from public life. In the opinion of Andrew 
 Johnson, McCulloch, Chamber of Commerce 
 & Co., if the people of the United States can be 
 compelled to raise produce, build ships, etc., at 
 so low prices as to make "a dollar fetch a 
 dollar," or so cheap as to undersell other 
 nations where capital is seeking investment at 
 two and three per cent, per annum, and men 
 beg for work for three and four shillings per 
 day, the perfection of statesmanship and all 
 the mysterious problems of political economy 
 will be solved. As soon as the "merchant 
 princes " and our money kings, who demand 
 forty per cent, added to their investments 
 in Government bonds, can reduce the price 
 of produce and labor sufl&ciently low as 
 to keep our planters, farmers, mechanics and 
 workmen from becoming demoralized, their 
 temporal millennium will have commenced. 
 Then white men will wish, as in the hard- 
 money days of Bullion, Buchanan & Co., that 
 they " was slaves ; " and the freedmen will 
 beg to be returned to slavery, for there is no 
 slavery so galling as poverty ; and gold is 
 more exacting, more cruel than the Southern 
 slave masters ever were. 
 
 We have an explanation to a mystery when 
 we read and reflect upon the report from the 
 Chamber of Commerce. It is said that there 
 are no native-born American citizens in the 
 City of New York that can be trusted with 
 the Government and funds of the Corporation, 
 and that they are obliged to elect "better 
 citizens " to govern the city and to take charge 
 of the public improvements and money. The 
 character of the report we have been consid- 
 ering seems to justify the people of the city 
 and their practice of importing their rulers. 
 
THE OHIO STATESMAN— WHAT IS MONEY, Etc. 
 
 35 
 
 THE OHIO STATESMAN— WHAT IS 
 MONEY ? Etc. 
 
 The question, What is money ? is beginning 
 to be discussed by business men and editors. 
 A few scholars and men professing to be 
 political economists in former times have phi- 
 losophized upon the subject "of what is 
 money ? " These writers, instead of inquiring 
 of truth, have unfortunately followed the style 
 of the German writers on Theology ; and those 
 who mystified the subject the most elaborately 
 with transcendentalisms, which neither them- 
 selves nor their readers could understand, 
 have been supposed to be the most profound 
 and correct thinkers. Our modern bullionists 
 eludicate the subject "of what is money." 
 Very tersely, they say " that a dollar is that 
 which will bring a dollar." As they are averse 
 to thinking, and a large number of them are 
 incapable of reasoning, this argument to them- 
 selves is conclusive, without considering that 
 the Governments of the world have no com- 
 mon standard ; that the coins of gold and 
 silver of the different nationalities are more or 
 less alloyed with base metals ; that their 
 value is different and frequently changed. 
 
 It is a pleasure therefore to have the theory 
 of the bullionists defended by an intelligent 
 writer. The editor of the Ohio Statesman 
 has made the attempt, and his article upon 
 the subject has been extensively copied and 
 commented upon, and is supposed by many to 
 be like the Bullionists' dollars, "the real 
 thing." Our limited space prevents us from 
 referring to it only in a few brief paragraphs ; 
 we think we shall be able to show the fallacy 
 of his arguments. He supposes that gold and 
 silver is the only true standard of values. This 
 we believe to be a miscliievous mistake and a 
 grievous error. 
 
 The editor of the Standard says : 
 The object of money, or of a circulating 
 medium of any kind, is to facilitate exchanges. 
 It was found that trade or commerce could 
 not be carried out to any extent by means of 
 barter alone, or by exchanging one specific 
 article for another. 
 
 This is perfectly true. And he adds : 
 That money or currency is best which most 
 facilitates the transaction of business — which 
 
 serves as the best medium of exchange. It 
 should act as lubricating oil, not only to keep 
 the wheel of exchange in motion, but to in- 
 crease the number of its revolutions. 
 
 This is also correct. But unfortunately for 
 the writer, the ag«nt he selects, gold and 
 silver, cannot be obtained in sufficient quan- 
 tities to make the necessary exchanges, and 
 therefore his argument fails of application. 
 
 Perhaps he would follow the advice ofR. 
 J. Walker, Esq., and borrow several hun- 
 dred millions of specie in Europe, which, if 
 practicable, would sacrifice the interests of 
 the Nation. We contend that a great and 
 wealthy Nation like ours, or, the State of 
 Ohio, can use the credit of the Commonwealth 
 as a basis to issue bills of credit upon, without 
 interest, equal to ten or fifteen per cent, of the 
 assessed value of the property of the State or 
 Government, and be perfectly independent of 
 capitalists, who do not possess the tithe of the 
 property within the control of Congress or of 
 the State of Ohio. The credit of the United 
 States is perfectly ample for the basis of " a 
 medium to facilitate exchange." It should 
 not be forgotten that all the gold and silver 
 is subject, as well as all other descriptions of 
 property in the country, and is held, as a secu- 
 rity for these bills of credit, and they are, there- 
 fore, good beyond a contingency. Jay Cooke's 
 Dutchman argued that the National Bank 
 bills were preferable to greenbacks, because 
 the banks endorsed the Government. He did 
 not consider that the National Bank corpora- 
 tions, and all the property of the directors, and 
 all of the property within the collection 
 districts of the United States, banks, stocks, 
 gold, silver, land, etc., was pledged to redeem 
 the notes of the United States Treasury. 
 
 If there was a sufficient amount of gold to 
 be obtained at one per cent., perhaps it would 
 be well to borrow it and let it lay idle in the 
 vaults ; for, when the bills are perfectly secured, 
 'gold is rarely called for. But as Ohio cannot 
 obtain sufficient gold to form a basis " to facili- 
 tate exchanges," must her vast wealth lay 
 dormant until it can be obtained ? The idea 
 is preposterous ; and as the State is debarred 
 by the Constitution of the United States from 
 coining money and issuing bills of credit, it 
 
86 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 becomes the imperative duty of the Govern- 
 ment to supply it. Allow the farmers of Ohio 
 fifty cents 'per day for their labor, and one per 
 cent, per annum for their capital invested in 
 and and sheep, etc., and they would obtain 
 more per pound for wool than they are receiv- 
 ing ; but as they are obliged at present to sell 
 their wool from twenty-five to thirty -five cents 
 per pound, we would ask the editor of the States- 
 man to calculate how much they would re- 
 ceive, providing specie payment was forced 
 upon the country, and his standard that " fa- 
 cilitate exchange " put into operation. There 
 is not a suflBcient amount of gold in the entire 
 State of Ohio to purchase the sheep in the 
 State a breakfast. 
 
 We give the editor the benefit of a lengthy 
 extract from his article. 
 
 The most essential characteristic of the best 
 currency is that it is a uniform standard and 
 steady measure of value. All currency is bad 
 just to the extent that it lacks this quality. 
 Why this fundamental point is not more dis- 
 cussed and better understood, is to us a mys- 
 tery. It is evident that, if we were purchas- 
 ing cloth by the yard from a manufacturer 
 whose yardstick possessed such peculiar 
 powers of contraction and expansion that it 
 was thirty-five inches one week, thirty-seven 
 another, and thirty-six the next, we could do 
 business with little certainty of profit or satis- 
 faction to ourselves. If the farmer contracts 
 to sell his wheat for $1 per bushel, and is in- 
 formed one day that a bushel is fifty-five 
 pounds, on another that it is sixty-three, and 
 on another that it is sixty-six pounds, it is 
 evident that he knows very little about what 
 he is getting for his crop. And yet, in this 
 matter of currency, we forget that we are 
 allowing precisely the same state of things to 
 exist every year. We agree to day to pay for 
 a certain service, one thousand dollars, six 
 months hence. We may be obliged to pay 
 what is equivalent to eleven hundred of to- 
 day's dollars, or possibly only nine hundred. 
 Until the expiration of the six months, we can- 
 not tell whether we have made a profitable or 
 a ruinous bargain. 
 
 The first three lines of the above paragraph 
 is correct doctrine ; but the fallacy is in the ap- 
 plication. The folly of the Statesinan's argu- 
 ment is in assuming that gold and silver fur- 
 nish the uniform standard his fancy pictures, 
 which is a delusion ; he imagines the gold dol- 
 lar is the true yard stick, and measures uni- 
 formly the same. There was never a greater 
 
 and we might add, a more fatal mistake. He 
 alleges, " There is but one remedy for this un- 
 certainty, and this perpetual variation in the 
 so-called measure of value ; and that remedy is 
 a return to a specie basis for our paper cur- 
 rency. When a paper dollar is at all times re- 
 deemable in coin, and equivalent to coin, it 
 will be as little variable in value as gold." 
 What would be thought of the wisdom of ten 
 manufacturers that would consent to wait to 
 have ten millions of yards of cloth measured by 
 a few dozen yard sticks made of gold, when 
 there was an ample supply of wooden ones of 
 precisely the same length and would do the 
 business in one hundredth part of the time ; or 
 of one million of farmers waiting to have sev- 
 eral hundred millions of bushels of grain 
 measured in a few half bushel measures made 
 from gold ; or, should several millions of farm- 
 ers and planters, having grain to sell, allow a 
 few hundred thousand men to increase the 
 size of the half-bushel measure to three pecks, 
 when these millions of men, being in a major- 
 ity, can, at their pleasure, determine the size 
 of the measure and the price to be received for 
 the produce ? Would they be' considered rea- 
 sonable men if they allow an insignificant 
 minority to rule them and reduce the price to 
 suit themselves, and especially as the minority 
 are obliged to obtain the grain or starve ? This 
 is a fruitful theme ; but our space prevents us 
 from following it. But we simply ask the edi- 
 tors of the Statesman to inform us what is the 
 amount of gold coin in the State of Ohio, one 
 of the most wealthy and flourishing States in 
 the Union. And what is the present "value of 
 the property of the State, and how much it 
 would measure if gold dollars were to mea- 
 sure it at forced sales, or what would be the 
 value of it if the Government should force 
 specie payments ? The Bullionists declare that 
 the Treasury notes are not real dollars ; but 
 say that the Government is bound to pay gold ' 
 dollars to those who loaned the Government 
 Treasury notes or paper money, and this they 
 claim is justice and consistency. The Consti- 
 tution gives to Congress the exclusive privi- 
 lege of issuing bills of credit, and fixing the 
 value thereof. And as Congress authorized 
 
THE OHIO STATESMAN— WHAT IS MONEY, Etc. 
 
 37 
 
 the issue of Treasury notes, they are the legal 
 representative of values, and are yard sticks 
 and bushels by which the property of 
 the country is measured. They have received 
 the stamp of the United States Government, 
 and the Supreme Court has declared them to 
 be the legal representative of values and pay- 
 ment for debts, and before the currency was 
 contracted they facilitated trade and exchanges 
 and gave employment at remunerative rates to 
 the entire population, who were more prosper- 
 ous and contented than ever before in the his- 
 tory of the country. 
 
 It is a misconception to suppose that the ma 
 teHal from which money is manufactured, 
 gives it the value, A. T. Stewart's note for 
 one million of dollars, written on a piece of 
 paper that cost less than the one-tenth part of 
 a cent, will sell for several cart loads of gold. 
 
 It is an indisputable fact, that the amount of 
 money in circulation should be limited only 
 by the requirements of trade and the amounts 
 of produce to be exchanged. And as it is impos- 
 sible to obtain gold, it is the duty of the Gov- 
 ernment to furnish bills of credit, Treasury 
 notes, which benefit both the people and the 
 Government. 
 
 In another paragraph, the Editor says : 
 As the paper dollar, not the gold dollar, is 
 the measure or supposed measure of value, it 
 is perfectly obvious that it measures nothing 
 and determines the value of nothing with ac- 
 curacy, for its own value is ever variable. 
 What sort of a standard of value for all other 
 values is that which is itself constantly chang- 
 ing ? A yard is a yard, an inch an inch, but a 
 dollar is not a dollar — it may be sixty-eight 
 cents one day, and seventy-two cents the next, 
 and seventy the next. 
 
 We join issue with the Statesman, and de- 
 clare that gold is the most uncertain and un- 
 reliable and the most fluctuating of all things 
 that was ever used for a standard of comput- 
 ing values. 
 
 Gold and silver are the most successful 
 agents of oppression, of fraud and robbery. 
 It is the greatest lever ever discovered in the 
 hands of ambitious and designing men to make 
 complete revolutions in society and sudden and 
 destructive fluctuations in values, and this is 
 the reason why it is so highly prized by the 
 money kings. 
 
 Previous to the issue of the United States 
 Treasury Notes, a few men in Wall street con- 
 trolled the money and produce markets of the 
 entire country — having control of the great 
 bulk of the gold, they varied the price of it to 
 suit themselves — one week money was worth 
 7 per cent., the next 14, and frequently good 
 notes sold at 3 per cent, per month or thirty-six 
 'per cent, per annum. 
 
 When they chose " the times were easy" 
 and gold was plenty and cheap, and when they 
 wished " the times were hard " and there was a 
 scrabble for gold — to sustain the small banks. 
 One week a barrel of pork would purchase 
 a gold eagle ; the next, it would require two 
 to purchase one ; the pork was of the same 
 quality and contained the same amount of 
 food. But the banks declared that money 
 was " tight " and not to be obtained at any 
 rates. The week before, money was clieap, 
 now it is dear ; last week good men could ob- 
 tain discounts at the bank at 7 per cent ; this 
 week they cannot obtain a dollar at 14. These 
 men were solvent ; the net value of their 
 goods, lands and merchandize had not changed, 
 but the value of gold was suddenly increased 
 to the great detriment of trade and commerce. 
 Will the editor of the Statesman attempt to 
 dispute the indisputable fact, that gold or prop- 
 erty is valuable just in proportion to what it 
 will produce in interest or rent ? If it is 
 claimed that it was the property or credit that 
 fluctuated in value and not the gold ; we 
 answer, if the mere hoarding of gold will de- 
 stroy values and bankrupt the people, it is a 
 nuisance and should be prohibited from use by 
 law ; a sensible merchant would as soon have 
 one half of his goods destroyed by fire, as to 
 have them depreciated 50 per cent, by the gold 
 gamblers. His insurance policy would save 
 him from loss by fire ; but he has no insurance 
 and can have none, except Government paper 
 money, against the " operators," who are mor 
 ally no better than the incendiaries. 
 
 The Gold Gamblers that operated before the 
 war and the issue of the Government paper 
 money, in the Bank parlors of Wall street, were a 
 thousand times more destructive to the interest 
 of the people than are the present race of Gold 
 
88 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 Gamblers, who principally prey upon each 
 other. Previously they disturbed values of all 
 descriptions of property throughout the entire 
 country. Among the tens of thousands of 
 blessings that Government paper money has 
 conferred upon the public, not the least has 
 been that it has, to a very great extent, 
 broken the power of the Money Kings of 
 New York, but as contraction proceeded they 
 became more insolent and again demanded of 
 solvent firms and merchants one to two per cent 
 per month for money which they declare is 
 only rags. If the editor of the Statesman 
 would come to New York, and learn the history 
 and study the character and tactics of the 
 Money and Bailroad Kings, who aspire to 
 rule the people of the United States — he would 
 learn their measures are so large, that it is im- 
 possible to fill them, and so loiig as not to be 
 endured. 
 
 The reduction of the currency — which is 
 merely reducing the number of measures, yard 
 sticks, or scales — has reduced the prices of 
 sheep and wool in the United States, within 
 the last eighteen months at the lowest cal- 
 culation, $300,000,000, of which the State 
 of Ohio has lost her full proportion. The 
 farmers have been deprived or cheated out of 
 at least forty millions of dollars, in the article 
 of wool, which if they had received, would be 
 now circulating through all of the channels of 
 trade and industry, and imparting activity and 
 life, where there is at present stagnation and 
 discontent. The result of contraction was 
 cheap mutton and cheap wool. Has the cheap- 
 ening of these two commodities of common 
 life been beneficial to the people ? We answer 
 emphatically. No I In another chapter we have 
 examined the subject to which we invite the 
 attention of the reader, and think if the 
 Statesman would defend the interests of the 
 farmers of Ohio instead of petifogging for 
 capital and capitalists, who are always flourish- 
 ing and require no help or sympathy from the 
 country press, he would be more profitably 
 employed. 
 
 AN OLD FALSEHOOD EXPOSED. 
 The principal argument, if false statements 
 can be properly called arguments, advanced in 
 
 favor of paying the 5-20 bonds in gold is, that 
 at the time they were issued, the Government 
 was in great straits for money, and would have 
 been obliged to succumb to the Rebellion unless 
 the capitalists advanced money, etc., etc. That 
 the Government could only raise the funds to 
 sustain itself, the army etc., etc., by ofiering 
 great inducements, extra interest, etc., etc. 
 Bonds payable principal and interest in gold 
 etc., etc. 
 
 The Tory Capitalists of England, undoubt- 
 edly believed this, and wishing the Rebellion 
 to succeed, refused, before they were asked, to 
 loan our Government money on any terms. 
 The Copperhead Capitalists of Wall street, and 
 a majority of our Bankers who sustained the 
 Union professed to believe that the Govern- 
 ment was entirely dependent upon Capitalists, 
 Banks and Bankers for its existence. But this 
 was only twaddle. If they really thought so, 
 it was because they had no just conception of 
 the magnitude of the wealth of the United 
 States, and did not understand the latent 
 power in the Constitution, which authorizes 
 Congress to '* issue bills of credit, coin money, 
 and fix the value thereof." The great banks of 
 Nassau, Broadway and Wall streets, it is noto- 
 rious, did their utmost to discredit Govern- 
 ment money, especially the first issue ; they re- 
 fused to receive it on deposit — would "not 
 receive such trash," or if they did, they re- 
 ceived them only as special deposits, and would 
 not recognize them as money. 
 
 In a few weeks there was a marvelous 
 change, and in spite of the attempts of the 
 banks and bankers to discard the Greenbacks 
 the public preferred them to the bills of the 
 best State Banks, and they were sought for at a 
 premium. 
 
 The truth is, and ten thousand falsehoods 
 can not alter it, as soon as the Government en- 
 graved the plates and printed and stamped 
 these bills of credit, there was not the least 
 necessity of making loans or selling bonds, 
 excepting upon the Government's own terms. 
 The people would as readily receive the Treas- 
 ury notes, fresh from the paymasters, as after 
 they had been delivered to the capitalists. They 
 were not increased in value or credit by being 
 paid out by the banks or bankers. 
 
THE NATIONAL BANKS. 
 
 39 
 
 If the Government bad issued $1,000,000,000 
 and paid them out to the army and Govern- 
 ment contractors, and offered a five per-cent. 
 loan, payable in five years, interest and princi- 
 pal in currency, or 3-per-cent. thirty year 
 bonds, payable principal and interest in gold, 
 the war would have been as vigorously prose- 
 cuted, and the National Finances been in a far 
 more satisfactory condition than they are at the 
 present time. And these 3-per-cent. bonds 
 would be selling for more gold than the 5-20 
 bonds now command. It is a principle, or 
 rather common prudence teaches capitalists to 
 take into consideration the habits as well as the 
 wealth of the borrowers. Spendthrifts, and 
 those who recklessly offer the largest bonusses' 
 are not the most successful negotiators. If the 
 Secretary of the Treasury had pursued this 
 policy, Jay Cooke & Co., and a host of other 
 bankers and stock and gold gamblers, several 
 hundreds of whom have become millionaires, 
 from profits derived from the Government, 
 would not now be preaching " economy " and 
 urging Congress to commit itself, or the 
 Nation, to increase their gains forty per cent, 
 that the " honor " of the Nation may be pre- 
 served immaculate. 
 
 Our capitalists, some of whom have become 
 so imperiously proud and aristocratic, that they 
 wish to be considered the main pillars of the 
 Republic, bombastically talk as if they, or 
 their money was the chief support of the Gov- 
 ernment in the days of trial, when in fact these 
 very men advised our incompetent minister of 
 finance, to issue gold-bearing bonds, and sac- 
 rifice the best interests of the public by squan- 
 dering upon nabobs hundreds of millions of 
 d )llais of gold. It is a miserable falsehood to 
 say, that the Government required their aid or 
 money. It does now, and from the bloated in- 
 comes of these gentlemen should be collected 
 the taxes to pay a large porportion of the ex- 
 penses of the Government. 
 
 THE NATIONAL BANKS. 
 
 In one of our Pamphlets on " our National 
 Finances," published in 1864, we made the fol- 
 lowing remark on the National Banks : 
 
 The National Banks are a very great im- 
 provement upon the State banking system ; are 
 far better calculated to assist the Government ; 
 for temporary depositories of Government 
 money, and as auxiliaries of the Treasury De- 
 partment, they are eminently useful, and they 
 will prove ligaments of immense power to bind 
 in one the great bundle of States. 
 
 But, when the whole truth is stated, these 
 institutions have privileges granted them by 
 Congress that are inconsistent with economy 
 and sound legislation ; for a Government, 
 so deeply involved in debt as ours, to give 
 away such valuable privileges, is squandering 
 the people's patrimony. It would really be 
 about as consistent to grant to individuals and 
 corporations the privilege of establishing pri- 
 vate custom houses to collect duties on impor- 
 tations in the different cities, and in the wards 
 of those cities. These banking privileges are 
 valuable and the Government should receive 
 an equivalent. As at present constructed, they 
 draw a heavy usury from the Government and • 
 the people ; receiving, for simply keeping an 
 oflice, one per cent, per monjth, or about 12 per 
 cent, per annum, on their capital, which is ex- 
 orbitant. If the Government bonds they have 
 deposited were drawing only three per cent., 
 and the rate of interest they charged on loans 
 was but three or four per cent., there would be 
 more consistency. 
 
 Three years of reflection has convinced us 
 that which we wrote then, is sound doctrine, 
 and we believe that Congress should amend 
 the National Banking Law, or frame a new 
 one, which would compel the banks to ex- 
 change their six per cent, bonds deposited with 
 the Government for new three per cent, long 
 bonds, and if they refused, to tax them out of 
 existence, as Congress did the old State banks. 
 The bankers and capitalists would brand this 
 as dishonorable ; although the act contains 
 the clause, that Congress can annul, alter, 
 and amend, etc., the men that would oppose 
 this proposition to reduce the rate of interest, 
 are the men who are, and have been, the most 
 active in endeavoring to have the Treasury 
 notes destroyed for the avowed purpose of re- 
 ducing the price of labor, materials, and the 
 products of the shops and farms, and this con- 
 duct proves that their opposition to the reduc- 
 tion of the rate of interest springs from personal 
 interest, and not from principle. Intelligent 
 persons will deny that Congress can control the 
 rate of interest " any more than they can the 
 tides but we know the Government can, and 
 
40 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 tliis great power should be wielded to protect 
 the people from excessive burdens and tax- 
 ation. 
 
 If the Government had kept the principal 
 part of the gold it has collected the past four 
 years, as it could and should have done, it 
 could have easily controlled the finances of the 
 continent, if not of Europe. If the three hun- 
 dred millions of gold now laying in the vaults of 
 the banks of England and France, was where 
 it belongs, in our Treasury vaults, those banks 
 would not, as they do now, be complaining of 
 " a glut of gold." Over one-third of this sura 
 has been unnecessarily paid to foreigners as 
 interest, and the balance for wines, brandies, 
 etc., etc., which the nation could have dis- 
 pensed with. A. T. Stewart and other foreign 
 merchants' incomes would not have been so 
 " redundant " and " plethoric ; " but the people 
 and the Government would have held the 
 grandest position in Christendom, and our 
 finances would have been as triumphant as 
 were our army and navy. 
 
 It is certain, if Congress should instruct the 
 Secretary of the Treasury to resume "now" 
 and compel the National Banks to pay 
 specie, their circumstances would compel 
 them to draw every dollar of gold from 
 the Treasury, as fast as it could be counted out 
 to them. The situation of the Philadelphia 
 and Boston banks proves this. They hold less 
 than one million of specie ; their deposits are 
 some ninety millions, and circulation thirty-six 
 millions. These figures give an idea of the 
 rush and fight there would be made for gold. 
 Order the National Banks to pay specie, and 
 seventeen hundred of their agents, at least, 
 would besiege the United States Treasury, de- 
 manding gold for greenbacks. It would take 
 the graphic pen of Dickens to describe the 
 scene. The exhibitions at the sale of tickets, 
 for his readings, would be no circumstance. 
 The truth is, the circulation of the National 
 Banks blocks the road to resumption, and 
 will for years to come. 
 
 The Government, probably, could resume at 
 once, and stand the run of the foreign bankers 
 and merchants. Our own people would re- 
 quire or demand but a small amount of gold, 
 
 they generally prefer bills ; but the talk of re- 
 sumption, with seventeen hundred banks fight- 
 ing for specie to preserve their existence, is 
 talking of an utter impossibility. 
 
 A FALSE ACCUSATION. 
 One of the latest fabrications, used to slander 
 the United States money, is to denounce it " as 
 a forced loan." In the Senate's Finance Com- 
 mittee Report, they say : 
 
 This currency now forms a part of the pub- 
 lic debt, and, being a legal-tender in the pay- 
 ment of debts, is in the nature of a compulsory 
 loan without interest. 
 
 How this language can be justified by grave 
 Senators, it is difficult to imagine. For it is 
 only a cant phrase, borrowed from the Bullion- 
 ists, and there is not a particle of truth to sup- 
 port the assertion, that the Treasury notes are 
 of the nature " of a forced loan." 
 
 Ever since the first issue of this Government 
 paper money, it has been popular, the public 
 refusing to accept the bills of the soundest 
 State banks, and demanding the bills of credit 
 issued by the Government. The people have 
 at all times received this money gladly, and 
 are willing to-day, and more than willing, to 
 sell Jive billions of dollars worth of improved 
 real estate and good personal property, and 
 take this money, valuing their farms, houses 
 and lots, plantations, etc., etc., at a price not 
 exceeding their fair value, prsvious to the 
 suspension of specie payments. Millions 
 of the 10 40 five-per-cent. gold bonds of the 
 United States G^overnment can be purchased 
 with Treasury notes at par, and one hundred 
 millions of dollars of these bonds, at least, 
 should be purchased and destroyed within the 
 next three months. 
 
 The great and rich Pacific Railroad Com- 
 pany are oflering their bonds, principal and 
 interest payable in gold, at 95, and take green- 
 backs. This company seem to appreciate the 
 Treasury money. It would be better for Gov- 
 ernment to take their whole loan than to let a 
 single million dollars of it go to Europe. 
 
 If the Senate Finance Committee wish to test 
 this matter, as to whether this money is of the 
 nature of forced loan, let them ofier to loan a 
 thousand millions of dollars at seven per cent, on 
 
THE SITUATION OF THE 
 
 SOUTHERN STATES, Etc. 
 
 4i 
 
 real estate worth double the amount, and they 
 will witness a competition for it that will con- 
 vince the most sceptical, that no force or com- 
 pulsion is required to loan it. And this would 
 demonstrate that the demand for money is far 
 greater than the supply, and it is a solemn truth, 
 if there is one duty more imperative than 
 another that pertains to legitimate and wise 
 legislation, it is that good Governments are 
 bound by correct principle and interest to sup- 
 ply their subjects or people with an ample and 
 well secured medium of exchange. 
 
 It is said, if Congress should make further 
 issues of Treasury notes it would be injurious 
 to the credit "of the Government. This state- 
 ment has no more foundation than the one in 
 respect to " forced loans. " If one hundred or 
 two hundred millions of dollars of the Govern- 
 ment bonds should be purchased and cancelled, 
 the supply of bonds would be reduced and the 
 money paid for them once in circulation, the 
 demand for investments would be increased, 
 and a capitalist would be a simpleton not to 
 understand that the less the amount of inter- 
 est the Government was called upon to pay, 
 the more capable it would be to pay it. A cor- 
 poration or individual that would pay six per 
 per cent, per annum for the use of money when 
 it could be obtained for three percent., or have 
 the use of it for nothing, would be a fit subject 
 for the Lunatic Asylum. 
 
 To coin and stamp and issue bills of credit by 
 an established and responsible Government, is 
 a mighty beneficent power when used discreetly 
 for the benefit of the whole people. And the 
 public have the same right to demand that it 
 should be used to secure their welfare and pro- 
 tect them from capital, as they have to demand 
 protection for their lives. 
 
 The men who talk the loudest and longest 
 about " strict economy " and " forced loans, " 
 are those who are most anxious to place the 
 Government in a situation to compel it to sub- 
 mit to the extortions of capitalists. They make 
 a great noise about reducing the pay of clerks, 
 and compelling members of Congress to pay 
 for the stationery they use, and for postage 
 stamps, etc., but strenously advocate measures 
 that would rob the Treasury of hundreds of 
 millions of dollars and put it into the pockets 
 6 
 
 of millionaires and foreign speculators. They 
 declaim eloquently about gold and silver 
 being " the money of the world, " and are not 
 aware that America is a world of itself — the 
 New World ; that we have a free and inde- 
 pendent Government, entirely difi*erent from 
 the old and effete dynasties of Europe, and the 
 people are determined or will soon determine 
 not to be ruled or ruined by (joldy the greatest 
 and most exacting and cruel of all tyrants. 
 
 THE SITUATION OE THE SOUTHERN 
 STATES— WHAT IS REQUIRED TO 
 RESTORE HAPPINESS AND PROS- 
 PERITY. 
 
 If there ever was a people, that could, or 
 should say, '* save us from our friends," it is 
 the whites in the South. President Johnson 
 and Secretary McCulloch, have placed the peo- 
 pie of the South in the same situation as they 
 intended to plunge the people of the whole 
 country. Mr. McCulloch in his late report re- 
 fers to his previous report and says : 
 
 In his report to Congress, under date of the 
 4th of December, 1865, the Secretary presented, 
 as fully and as clearly as he was able to do, his 
 views upon the subject of the currency and the 
 necessity of aciion for the purpose of bringing 
 about a return to specie payments. The views 
 thus presented by him were approved by the 
 Hoase of Representatives on the 8th of Decem- 
 ber, 1865, by the adoption of the following 
 resolution, by the decisive vote of 144 to 6 : 
 
 Resolted, That this House cordially concurs in 
 the views of the Secretary of the Treasury in 
 relation to the necessity of a contraction of tht 
 currency, with a view to as early a resumption 
 of specie payments as the business interests of 
 the country will permit ; and we hereby pledge 
 co-operative action to this end as speedily as 
 practicable. 
 
 His recommendation, he refers to, was the 
 following, which is his great panacea for all 
 the ills of the Nation. 
 
 To such a condition of national prosperity ae 
 will insure a permanent restoration of the 
 specie standard the following measures are, in 
 the opinion of the Secretary, important, if not 
 indispensable : 
 
 First, The funding or i)ayment of tlie bal- 
 ance ot interest-bearing notes, and a continued 
 contraction of the paper currency. 
 
 The Secretary fails to reveal the fact, that 
 within thirty days, Congress passed another 
 resolution, preventing the destruction of the 
 
OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 life blood of tlie Nation (the treasury notes), j 
 faster than four millions per month. If it had | 
 at that time, passed an act as it has at the pres- 
 ent session forbiding contraction, the indus- 
 trial, financial and political situation of the 
 country would have been in a much more 
 satisfactory situation than it is, and if it had 
 not placed a restraint on the power of the 
 Secretary, he would have shipwrecked the 
 finances, and the Northern and Western States 
 would have been at the present time, in only a 
 little better situation than the Southern States, 
 and the prospects of the success of the Re- 
 publican party would be slim indeed. 
 
 We are convinced, that it has been the in- 
 tention of McCulloch & Co. from the first, to 
 bring bankruptcy and ruin upon the Northern 
 as well as the Southern States, being aware 
 that this was the only possible way in which 
 " rehabilitation " and reconstruction on the 
 Johnsonian plan could be inaugurated, and 
 which would insure the defeat and destruction 
 of the Republican party. It was a diabolical and 
 monstrous scheme, and came very near being 
 successful. The great error of the Republican 
 party, is that it has allowed McCulloch to lead 
 them and the country to the very brink of ruin. 
 If there had been one or two hundred millions 
 of the circulating medium added to the cur- 
 rency and judiciously placed in the South, 
 the suffering and confusion that is prevailing 
 there at present would have been avert- 
 ed, and which is used with effect to make 
 universal suffrage and the Republican party 
 unpopular. 
 
 We are aware that war, pestilence, floods, 
 worms and droughts, which seem to have been 
 dispensations of Providence, have aflBicted the 
 inhabitants of the South. But the principal 
 source of the present poverty and distress has 
 been created by the absence of a circulating 
 medium. Messrs. Johnson, McCulloch & Co., 
 have assured them that there was a "pleth'>ric" 
 "redundant" currency ; that the price of cotton 
 tobacco, etc., was "inflated" and that "healthy" 
 times could only be restored by a severe con- 
 traction of the currency, but we do not suppose 
 that any sensible man in the entire South, 
 believed such arrant nonsense, but swal- 
 lowed it expecting when the Republican 
 
 party was destroyed, a new crop of State 
 Banks, and payment for slaves, etc., would par- 
 tially remunerate them for their sufferings and 
 losses. The majority of these men unfortunately 
 believe that there can nothing good come to 
 them out of (Nazareth) the Republican party. 
 
 In the seven Cotton States of North and South 
 Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Lou- 
 isiana and Texas, they have twenty Banks with 
 a circulation of only $2,684,800. This sum is 
 scarcely sufiicient to purchase food for the in- 
 habitants for a single day. Contrast this with 
 some of the Northern States. New York has 
 314 Banks, with a circulation of $72,558,885 ; 
 Massachusetts 203 Banks, with a circulation of 
 $57,420,265. 
 
 These figures reveal the whole secret. Missis- 
 sippi has two Banks, and only $66,000 circula- 
 tion. A Broadway Faro Bank requires more 
 capital to start a respectable hell than the great 
 and rich State of Mississippi is allowed, to cul- 
 tivate her immense area of land, and make her 
 purchases and exchanges with. Is it aston 
 ishing that we hear cries of distress from these 
 States ? What would be the effect in New 
 York, Massachusetts, or Pennsylvania, if the 
 facilities for obtaining money were restricted 
 to this extent. There would be civil war in 
 thirty days, and not a single Bank or wealthy 
 person would escape from being plundered. 
 We state this in as few words as possible, and 
 hasten from, the contemplation of the horrid 
 subject. 
 
 We cut the following extracts from the New 
 York Tribune, which give a vivid view of the 
 situation in the South : 
 
 SOUTHERN REAL ESTATE ITEMS. 
 
 A correspondent writing from Hinesville, 
 Liberty County, Ga., says: "A sale has taken 
 place at this county seat that so well marks the 
 extreme depression in the money market that 
 I send you the particulars. Colonel Quarter- 
 man, of this county, deceased, and his executor 
 Judge Featter, was compelled to close the es- 
 tate. The property was advertised, as required 
 by law, and on last court day it was sold. A 
 handsome residence at VV^althourville, with ten 
 acres attached, out houses and all the necessary 
 appendages of a first-class planter's residence, 
 was sold for $00. The purchaser was the agent 
 of the Freedmen's Bureau. His plantation, four 
 hundred and fifty acres of prime land, l^rought 
 $150 ; sold to a Mr. Fr^ser. Sixty-six acres of 
 other land, near Walthourville, brought $3 ; 
 
THE SITUATION OF THE SOUTHBBX STATES, Etc. 
 
 43 
 
 purchaser Mr. W. D. Bacon. These were all ] 
 bona fide sales. It was court day, and a larnre 
 concourse of people were present. The most 
 of them were large property owners, but really 
 had not $5 in their pockets, and in consequence 
 would not bid, as the sales were for cash." 
 
 In the face of facts like these, the President 
 and Secretary of the Treasury advise Congress 
 to reduce the circulating medium. In an edi- 
 torial in the same paper we read as follows : 
 
 SOUTHEKN RELIEF, 
 
 The South is to-day rich in land and poor in 
 almost everything else. Part of her soil is badly 
 cultivated, the larger portion unproductive, 
 while her mines are unopened, and her water- 
 power runs to waste, because she has no capital 
 wherewith to develope and improve them. . . 
 Families which hold a thousand acres of mainly 
 good soil, but generally in bad condition, are ab- 
 solutely harassed by debts of a few hundred dol- 
 lars, and know not how to meet them. . . . 
 Beds of ore and mines of coal that will soon bo 
 worth tens of thousands of dollars are included 
 in tracts of mainly timbered land that are of- 
 fered for $20 per acre or less ; while planta- 
 tions of one to two thousand acres seek pur- 
 chasers for less than the cost of their buildings. 
 Laborers in abundance cling to or surround 
 those plantations, anxious to be liired for $10 
 per month and rations that would cost less than 
 $5 more. As good labor as theirs cannot be 
 hired this way for less than $30 per month (in- 
 cluding board), and the blacks expect to work 
 long and hard in the crop-making season. 
 
 The editor advises Northerners to go South 
 and purchase land, etc. Very good advice, and 
 a good speculation, undoubtedly. But this 
 would be only a slow and tortuous mode of re- 
 lief. If the Government would issue two hun- 
 dred or three hundred millions of dollars and 
 loan it to ten of the Southern States at 3 per 
 cent, to shield them from the financial sharks 
 that are taking advantage of their necessities 
 and keeping them in the Slough of Despond, 
 this v/ould allow them to repair their levees, 
 purchase agricultural tools and implements, 
 seeds, etc., etc., and it would in three years 
 add hundreds of millions of dollars to the 
 wealth of the country. If Congress should do 
 his. Reconstruction, peaceful and permanent, 
 would soon be accomplished. The South must 
 have prosperity before she can become recon- 
 ciled, and she cannot have prosperity without 
 the assistance of money. She cannot employ 
 or feed the freedmen, and raise large crops so 
 necessary for the general welfare, unless she 
 
 can obtain money. And she cannot obtain 
 money unless the General Government pro- 
 vides it. It is the duty, and should be the 
 pleasure, of Congress, to assist the Southern 
 States, 
 
 The usurers would howl again as fierce as 
 they have for the past five years, about " ca- 
 lamity," " Bankruptcy," " Rags," " Forced 
 Loans," etc., etc., but with an ample supply of 
 Government money in circulation, peace and 
 rapid prosperity in every section of our broad 
 land would cheer the hearts and give renewed 
 energy to the people, and knit the bonds of 
 Union closer than ever. 
 
 The great requirement of the South is money. 
 The cry comes from every quarter, we require 
 money. We will sell our lands for one quarter 
 of their value. We require money to purchase 
 seed and pay hands. We have plenty of good 
 property, but must have money. We want 
 money. Certainly you do, and as soon as your 
 seventy members of Congress take their seats, 
 if they are not fools, you idll get it. The reason 
 why the capitalists and Johnson, McCuUoch 
 & Co., -wish to keep you quarrelling on the 
 negro question, is because they are determined 
 to keep the Southern States unrepresented 
 until they can get their 5-20 and their long 
 bonds arranged to suit themselves, and have the 
 Government eternally bound in chains that 
 cannot be severed, even with the assistance of 
 the Southern States. 
 
 The negroes are free, and the edict cannot be 
 broken, and they are bound to vote. Let them 
 vote. They will sustain the men that sustain 
 the interests of the South. The principal in- 
 terest in the South is that of Agriculture and 
 Labor, There can be no conflict on the sub- 
 ject between the whites and blacks. The in. 
 creased representation from colored suffrage 
 will be required, and be in season to meet and 
 repel the encroachments of concentrated capi- 
 tal, and we advise the South to come to the 
 help of labor against the mighty as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 In one of our pamphlets published in the 
 Winter of 1865, we wrote the extract which 
 we copy below. We anticipated that there 
 would be distress and siifiering, and exerted 
 
44 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 ourself in vain to have some plan adopted by 
 the Government to avert it. 
 
 A SUGGESTION THA'T NWII.L NOT BE ADOPTED. 
 
 The Soutliern States contain about 450 mil- 
 lions of acres of land. If the Government 
 would appropriate and sell 200 millions of acres 
 of this land, in 200-acre farms, to 500 thousand 
 poor white men, and 500 thousand colored men, 
 at $10 per acre, on a credit of ten years, at 3 
 per cent, interest, and advance them $500 each 
 to erect dwellings and purchase tools, etc , the 
 sum would amount to 2,500 millions of dollars; 
 the annual interest on the mortgages would be 
 75 millions of dollars, which sum, if placed in 
 a sinking fund, would pay the Government 
 debt in less than twenty-five years. And this 
 one million of free and independent farmers 
 would, by their labor and improvements, in- 
 crease the wealth of the Southern States enor- 
 mously ; and the remaining 250 millions of 
 acres would be increased in price to double and 
 treble the present value of all the land in the 
 Southern country. This is a feasible sugges- 
 tion ; but as it involves trouble for the benefit 
 of poor people, is very unlikely to be adopted. 
 
 This would be a work worthy of the Freed - 
 men's Bureau — worthy of a Government that 
 was in earnest to do good ; but it seems to have 
 been the established policy of the statesmen of 
 the United States, previous to the inaugura- 
 tion of Mr. Lincoln, to do as little good as pos- 
 sible, and to restrict the benefits of legislation 
 to the narrowest limits. 
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF MERCHANTS 
 FARMERS AND MECHANICS— THE 
 INSOLENCE OF CAPITALISTS— MR. 
 SPAULDING'S LETTER TO SENATOR 
 MORGAN— SHORT COMINGS, Etc. 
 If a wretched woman enters a store and pur- 
 loins a pair of hose to keep her feet from freez- 
 ing, or a loaf of bread to keep her children 
 from starvation, the merchant is excited, the 
 police are called, and he will attend Court sev- 
 eral days, spending money and time, to have 
 her punished. 
 
 If a farmer encroaches his line fence but a 
 single foot on his neighbor's farm, judges 
 juries and lawyers are called into requisition at 
 once, his anger is aroused, and he will expend 
 hundreds, and perhaps thousands of dollars, to 
 have the fence removed. 
 
 If a master mechanic attempts to reduce the 
 wages of his workmen five or ten per cent., 
 there is a fierce opposition immediately.- The 
 Trades Unions throughout the country are no- 
 
 tified; they extend sympathy and aid, and a 
 strike is inaugurated. 
 
 But when it is known that the capitalists are 
 concocting measures to take one-half of the 
 merchant's goods, or rather to reduce the price 
 one-half, which amounts to precisely the same 
 thing, he sits in his store stupidly smoking his 
 cigar, and curses the Rebellion, the " niggers ' 
 and the Radicals, and allows the robbery to 
 proceed, and will probably vote against the 
 ''niggers" at the next election, who will, if 
 permitted, cast their influence and votes to pro- 
 tect the interest of the merchant. The debates 
 in the Southern Conventions prove that the col- 
 ored men have a clear perception that their 
 interests are closely connected with the trading 
 and industrial classes, and that they can and 
 should be protected by legal enactments. 
 
 When a farmer is informed by the Secretary 
 of the Treasury that he is receiving " exorbi 
 tant " prices for his produce, and that prices 
 should be reduced ; that " one dollar in specie 
 is as good for him as three in Treasury notes," 
 he has a confused idea that he has worked, rain 
 and shine, sixteen hours per day, for which he 
 only received his board and clothing, and has 
 not two per cent, on his investment in land and 
 stock, he scratches his pate and declares that 
 he never can understand the question of the 
 finances, and consents that the price of his farm, 
 stock, tools, and crops, be reduced from 50 to 
 300 per cent., and makes no efifort to stop the 
 robber3^ 
 
 He understands the " nigger " question per- 
 fectly. If you make slaves freemen, you con' 
 vert them into savages ; if you educate them, 
 and allow them to vote, they will become bar- 
 barians ; that they are only brutes, and can- 
 not be enlightened and civilized, and that if 
 five hundred thousand of them are allowed to 
 vote they will rule the five or six millions of 
 white men, and destroy the country. Upon 
 this subject he is fully posted, but cannot com. 
 prehend whether he would be benefitted by 
 high prices or not. 
 
 The Trades Unions and mechanics allow 
 Andrew Johnson & Co., by contracting the cur- 
 rency, to reduce the wages of workmen from 
 15 to 45 per cent.; to close factories; and to 
 suspend improvements and deprive hundreds o 
 
THE INCONSISTENCIES OF MERCHANTS, FARMERS, Etc. 
 
 45 
 
 thousands of people of work and food, and 
 make no sign of opposition. The workmen of 
 Cincinnati are an honorable exception. They 
 have recently elected Gen, Carey to Congress, 
 to protest against this fraud and scheme of in- 
 iquity. Tens of thousands of mechanics are 
 afraid that some persons will suppose " that 
 ' niggers ' are as good as white men," not re- 
 flecting if the freedmen can by any means be 
 forced to work for low wages (as the capitalists 
 intend they shall), it will reduce the price of 
 all labor in the United States in the same pro" 
 portion as it would to reduce by force or other- 
 wise ^he wages of six or seven hundred thou 
 sand of white men. It should be remembered 
 that the diminution of prices pats it out of the 
 power of the merchant, the farmer, and the me- 
 chanic, to pay their obligations, and they fail ; 
 meanwhile, the capitalist's and the banker's 
 money is increased in value just in proportion 
 as its purchasing power is increased, or in pro 
 portion to the decrease in the value of mer- 
 chandise, produce and labor. The capitalists 
 are idolized for their wealth and success. They 
 are solvent men, and sport costly and splendid 
 equipages. The merchant and farmer are in- 
 sulted for their poverty, and cursed because 
 they are unable to pay their debts, and are 
 charged with rascality or ignorance, or of id le 
 ness and extravagance, and with all sorts of 
 reasons except the true one. 
 
 And if they choose to avail themselves of the 
 bankrupt law, the rich editors who have as 
 sisted in the work of their destruction, publish 
 their names in emblazoned letters, so that they 
 shall receive and feel the scorn of the world ; 
 and that their wives, sons and daughters may 
 participate their fall share in their fathers' dis- 
 grace. Thousands of honorable and sensitive 
 men would take the benefit of the act, but are 
 deterred by feelings of respect for their fami- 
 lies, and the dread of fresh and insulting hu. 
 miliation. If the Southern freedmen make no 
 better use of the elective franchise than the 
 classes we have referred to, and are as stupid 
 in regard to their own interests, they will de- 
 serve to be disfranchised. The use of the bal- 
 lot is only a farce if it is not used so as to 
 benefit the masses, the industrial and produc- 
 ing classes of society. We expect that this pam- 
 
 phlet will, like those that have preceded it, be 
 severely criticised and called " agrarian," etc. ; 
 but as we write for neither money or fame» 
 if it assists to correct public opinion on the 
 financial question, we shall be satisfied ; but 
 we assure the reader who supposes we are too 
 Radical, if you judge us from a stand-point a 
 few years in the future, we are only a weak 
 Conservative. 
 
 The Hon. Mr. Spaulding, in his recent letter 
 to Senator Morgan, says that the moment that 
 the Government is enabled by contraction to 
 resume specie payments, " nearly all the com- 
 plicated and disturbing issues" will be dis- 
 posed of. There was never a greater mistake. 
 Senator Morgan, in his speech at Cooper Insti- 
 tute, in which he said, speaking of the Treas- 
 ury notes, "The people have become accus- 
 tomed to, and to some extent, satisfied with 
 them," showed that his discernment was keener 
 than that of of his friend Mr. Spaulding. 
 
 The principal reason why the capitalists 
 have been, and are, in such haste to destroy 
 the Government money is, that they fear that 
 the people will learn that their Government 
 can create money, and thereby reduce the rate 
 of interest, and therefore are not under the 
 necessity of borrowing from the usurers at 
 high rates. We can assure these gentlemen, 
 the public, having tested the matter to their 
 satisfaction, it will be impossible to impose the 
 theory of the Bullionists on them hereafter. 
 
 We, being conservative on the financial 
 question and extremely liberal, have fixed the 
 rate the nation should pay at three per cent, 
 per annum, but within a very few years the 
 people will learn that one per cent, is all that 
 can be justly and reasonably asked for the use 
 of money, and will demand that Congress re- 
 duce the rate to that figure. 
 
 The institution of slavery has been a colossal 
 fortification blocking the road to reform and 
 national progress : having been removed, the 
 people are marching on over the other slight 
 barriers, which will be trampled in the dust 
 and swept away by the political hurricanes of 
 social progress, that are already discernible, 
 rising in the political heavens. 
 
 The people of Massachusetts are demanding 
 that the State take possession of the railroads 
 
OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 for the benefit of the people. The railroad 
 company took the citizens' houses, gardens and 
 farms for the good of tlie public, and if it is a 
 public benefit they sliould be compelled, on 
 payment, to rescind their privileges and prop- 
 erty. 
 
 The people of Boston, through her Com- 
 mon Council, have applied to the Legislature 
 for the privilege of manufacturing and supply- 
 ing the public with gas at cost. This indi. 
 cates that enlightened communities are begin- 
 ning to comprehend the great cardinal doctrine 
 that governments are instituted for the benefit 
 of the governed, and not for the purpose of cre- 
 ating and sustaining odious and oppressive 
 monopolies. 
 
 Imagine, for a moment, what a holy horror 
 would seize the Old Money Bags of New York 
 if there should be a serious proposition to 
 supersede the Manhattan Gas Company. How 
 eloquently they would declaim about the honor 
 of the St;!te, and the intelligence of the stupid 
 old Dutchman, who, near a century ago, grant- 
 ed a perpetual charter to that corporation. The 
 last quotations of this stock was about $300 for 
 $50 shares, and is now out of sight, excepting 
 wlien some old gentleman dies and it is forced 
 to be sold to settle his estate. We wish we 
 knew how many times and to what extent this 
 stock has been watered. 
 
 In recent congresses of European reformers 
 they have proposed and discussed the proposi- 
 tion " That the furnishing of credit was a mat- 
 ter with which the State alone should deal." 
 This is laying the ax at the root of the tree. 
 We give these few signs — they might be 
 largely multiplied — to prove that we are con- 
 servative, and that the measures we propose 
 are not up to the advanced thought of earnest 
 and able men, who will soon control the mul- 
 titudes of people. 
 
 USURY, THE CURSE OF CIVILIZATION, 
 BUT ESPECIALLY OF THE NINE- 
 TEENTH CENTURY— THE PRICE OF 
 MONEY— DESCRIPTION OF CAPITAL- 
 ISTS, Etc.— GENERAL GRANT— THE 
 REPUBLICAN CONGRESS. 
 The most gigantic evil, that has ever afflicted 
 
 humanity, more blighting in its effects than 
 
 famine, pestilence and war, is usury. It is 
 condemned by the Old and New Testaments, 
 and placed in the calendars of the greatest 
 sins and crimes, and has been denounced by 
 all righteous law makers since Moses. It is the 
 only crime inherited from barbarous ages, that 
 is countenanced by civilization. Good men, and 
 the statutes of civilized States, have attempted 
 to provide for its restriction and punishment, 
 but it has corrupted legislators, preachers and 
 juries. The riches of its votaries, who are 
 the money kings of Christendom, awe the j udge 
 on the bench, the minister in the pulpit, and the 
 representatives in parliaments, councils and 
 congresses. It is the cause of more want, crime 
 and prostitution than all other causes combined. 
 It is the most prolific source of sickness, disease 
 and death generated by poverty, destitution 
 and exposure, the results of the exactions of 
 usurers. It transfers the life-blood of the 
 nations into the coffers of the great capitalists, 
 who, after destroying men singly, but by 
 millions, project devices — governmental laws 
 — to destroy and virutually enslave them by 
 billions. 
 
 The kings that oppress the most crually are 
 not the Popes, Emperors, Kings and Queens, 
 that occupy the thrones of Europe. Thank 
 Heaven ! only one, is permitted to reign at a 
 time. But the Money Kings, of whom there 
 are several thousand in every country, are 
 continually destroying the substance and lives 
 of the populations and depriving them of the 
 usefulness and pleasures of existence, and 
 indirectly but certainly filling millions and 
 tens of millions of premature graves because 
 their occupants have been stinted and op- 
 pressed by poverty and its attendant evils. 
 
 The money gathered to pay the interest for 
 the public debt by the Government of Great 
 Britain, although the rate of interest is only 
 three percent, has concentrated the wealth of 
 the kingdom in the hands of a few persons, and 
 the result is, a bloated aristocracy, boundless 
 wealth and extravagance, and abject besotted 
 poverty, ignorance and crime. There are a 
 few hundred millionaires, a few thousand of 
 "the middling classes," and millions of paupers, 
 and the middling classes are continully faster 
 and faster swept into the vortex of bankruptcy. 
 
USURY, THE CURSE OF CIVILIZATION, Etc. 
 
 47 
 
 Dissatisfaction, bread riots, and bloodshed, are } 
 becoming more and more frequent. The people | 
 are clamoring for reform — manhood suffrage 
 which is worthless unless used to protect the 
 people from the usurers — to supply them with 
 labor, and with a reasonable and just compen- 
 sation for the same. 
 
 Great Britain, and she is truly great in 
 many respects, with a history of magnificent 
 triumphs, in peace and war, in literature and 
 art, with her glorious Magna Charta, and 
 thousands of free churches and charitable 
 institutions, with thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands of devout Christians, beseeching Heaven 
 to save their country, yet the most sanguine 
 hope for no solution of her danger and difficul- 
 ties but by the terrible alternative, revolution. 
 
 There is but a single avenue of escape to 
 avert her day of doom. And it is improbable 
 that her capitalists and nobles will heed it. 
 For covetousness is the strongest of all passions. 
 Happy for England, if enlightened legislation 
 or suffrage legally and peacefully compel her 
 Money Kings to pay from their enormous 
 incomes and hoards of wealth the principal 
 portion of the expenses of her government, 
 including the interest on the public debt. 
 The situation of Great Britain presents a study 
 and warning to the people and statesmen of 
 the United States, 
 
 To show the increase of money from the ex- 
 orbitant rates of interest, we quote a chapter 
 from a work written by Edward Kellogg, and 
 published in New York in 1849. We believe 
 this author had a clearer view of the pliilosophy 
 of finance, the nature, use, and qualities of 
 money, than any other man that has ever 
 written upon the subject. This book, which is 
 scarcely known, should be in every library, 
 school and family in the United States. The 
 chapter is curious and worthy of serious con- 
 sideration. It reads: 
 
 Interest on money at six per cent, per an- 
 num, payable half yearly, will double the prin- 
 cipal in eleven years, eight months and twen- 
 ty-one days ; but for convenience, we will call 
 it twelve years. One thousand dollars loaned 
 at six per cent, in twelve years will accumu- 
 late to $2,000 ; iu twenty -four years to $4,000 ; 
 in twenty-six years to $8,000; in forty-eight 
 
 years to $1G,.000 ; in sixty years to $36,000 ; in 
 seventy-two years to $64,000 ; in eighty-four 
 years to $128,000 ; in ninety-six years to $256,- 
 
 000 ; in one hundred and eight years to $512,- 
 000; in one hundred and twenty years to 
 $1,024,000. Multiply this sum by 1,024 and it 
 will give the accumulation for one hundred 
 and twenty years more $1,0241 ,000; multiplied by 
 1,024 equals $1,048,576,000. Multiply this pro- 
 duct by 1,024 and we shall have the accumula- 
 tion during the next one hundred and twenty 
 years or, for a period of three hundred and sixty 
 years $1,048,576,000 by 1,024, $1,073,741,824,000 
 The rate of interest on money at one per cent., 
 payable half-yearly, will double the principal 
 in about sixty-nine years and a half ; but, for 
 convenience, we will call it seventy years. One 
 thousand dollars loaned at one per cent, in 
 seventy years will accumulate to $2,000 ; in 
 one hundred and forty years to $4,000 ; in two 
 hundred and ten years to $8,000 ; in one hun- 
 dred and eighty years to $16,000; in three 
 hundred and fifty years to $32,000 ; or, in three 
 hundred and sixty years to say $37,574. 
 
 Deduct $37,554 from the accumulation on 
 $1,000 at six per cent, during the three hun- 
 dred and sixty years, i. e., $36,574 from 
 $1,073,741,824,000 and the remainder is $1,- 
 073,741,786,426, which sum a rate of inter- 
 est of six per cent, on $1,000 will accumulate 
 over and above the sum accumulated by a rate 
 of interest of one per cent, on the same sum 
 during a period of three hundred and sixty 
 years. One dollar loaned at six per cent, per 
 annum, the interest collected and reloanedlialf 
 yearly for a period of three hundred and sixty 
 years will accumulate the sum of $1,073,741,824, 
 while the same dollar, loaned at one percent., 
 and the interest collected and reloaned in the 
 same manner for the same period, will accumu- 
 late little more than $37. One dollar loaned 
 at six per cent, interest per annum for a period 
 of three hundred and sixty years, would accu- 
 mulate more than double the assessed value of 
 the whole State of New York. The legal in- 
 terest in the State of New York is seven per 
 cent., and one dollar loaned at this rate for 
 ! three hundred and sixty years, would accumu- 
 
 1 late a greater sum than tho ViUuation of th» 
 i whole United States, 
 
 I 
 
43 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 Suppose a foi»eign nation should lend the 
 Government of the United States $100,000 at 
 seven per cent., on condition that our Govern- 
 ment should give her bond half yearly for the 
 payment of the interest, and the sum should 
 accumulate for a term of three hundred and 
 sixty years, however prosperous the people 
 might be at the expiration of the period, the 
 whole property of the nation would not pay 
 the debt. At seven per cent, interest the debt 
 would double in about ten years. In three 
 hundred and sixty years, $100,000 loaned at 
 seven per cent, interest per annum, would 
 amount to $6,971,947,673,600,000, a much 
 larger sum than the valuation of the property 
 of the whole world. These calculations make 
 it evident that six and seven per cent, interest 
 cannot, and ought not, to be paid by any 
 nation. 
 
 We will make a calculation of interest at three 
 per cent, per annum paid and reloaned half- 
 yearly as in the former calculation. If the 
 United States should borrow from England 
 $100,000 at three per cent, interest, take up her 
 bonds every six months and give new bonds, 
 adding in the interest, the debt would be 
 doubled in about twenty-three and a half 
 years ; but allow it to double in twenty-four 
 years and the $100,000 would accumulate in 
 three himdred and sixty years to $3,276,800,- 
 000. The annual interest on this sum at three 
 per cent, would be $98,304,000. The y€>arly 
 payment of this sum of interest would be 
 caused by merely borrowing $100,000 for a 
 period of three hundred and sixty years at three 
 per cent, per annum, adding the interest to the 
 principal every six months. This enormous 
 debt would be occasioned by the accumulative 
 power of interest which it requires the products 
 of labor to satisfy and pay. 
 
 Suppose, when Virginia was settled in 1607, 
 England had sold to the first settlers the whole 
 United States for $1,000 and had taken amort- 
 gage for this sum, covering the whole property, 
 instead of paying the interest yearly at seven 
 per cent., the settlers agree to take up these 
 bonds at the end of six months and add in the 
 interest ; allow the $1,000 and the accruing in 
 terest to remain outstanding until 1850 and then 
 to become due, although the prosperity of the 
 
 nation has far surpassed that of any other, yet 
 its property of every description would not pay 
 the debt. The interest would double the prin- 
 cipal in ten years and one month. In one 
 hundred years and ten months the debt would 
 amount to $1,024,000 ; in two hundred and one 
 years and eight months to $1,048,576,000 ; add 
 forty years and four months to 1859, and the 
 sum would amount to $16,777,216,000. 
 
 All the interest which would have accumu- 
 lated upon the $1,000 would not have in- 
 creased the quantity of money or the prop- 
 erty of the nation. All the increase of the 
 value of the property would have been added 
 by the labor of the people ; but all of these sur- 
 plus earnings have not equalled the legal ac- 
 cumulation at seven per cent, interest on 
 $1,000 during this period. The Southern and 
 Western States depend upon the yearly pro- 
 ducts of their labor for their wealth. They 
 are greatly impoverished by the amount of in- 
 terest that they are compelled to pay to our 
 Eastern and Northern cities for the use of 
 money. A very large amount of the stocks of 
 Western banks and a large amount of Western 
 and Southern State bonds are owned by capi- 
 talists in the Northern cities and by foreigners. 
 The interest on these is constantly transferring 
 the earnings of the people of these States to a 
 few capitalists in the large cities or in foreign 
 nations. All this would be avoided by the es- 
 tablishment of proper monetary laws in our 
 own nation. The Government should furnish 
 money by making a representative of the prop- 
 erty of applicants in their own States, and no 
 State should be compelled to pay to other 
 States or nations, millions of dollars worth of 
 products yearly for a representative of their 
 property." It is not singular that an author 
 who wrote in this vein was unpopular in New 
 York. 
 
 The public debt of the United States, is, in 
 round numbers $2,500,000,000. The question 
 is, when, and in what manner shall it, or can it, 
 be paid. 
 
 There is a strife to hasten the period, when 
 the whole amount shall be represented in 
 bonds, the interest of which is to be paid in 
 gold. As soon as this is accomplished, the 
 annual amount of interest to be raised will be 
 
USURY, THE CURSE OF CIVILIZATION, Etc. 
 
 49 
 
 $150,000,000. The most tlioughtful of the 
 men, who have been urging contraction of the 
 currency, and the issue of gold bearing bonds, 
 and the payment annually of a large amount j 
 of the principal, begin to realize the impossi- 
 bility of the plan, and now propose to fund the ! 
 debt into long bonds, and reduce the taxes to a j 
 sum just sufficient to pay the interest on them | 
 and the ordinary expenses of the Government, ' 
 reducing the latter to the lowest possible 
 amount. i 
 
 There is, provided the people would consent, a 
 probability that the scheme could be worked. 
 Bat when the people learn that it involves ' 
 raising by taxation a sum equal to the entire : 
 debt every eleven years, and mil not reduce the ! 
 principal a single dime, they tcill not consent to 
 sustain such an eternal monstrous incubus 
 and fraud, and it is preposterous to ask them ' 
 to do so. 1 
 
 The net wealth of the United States exceeds 
 that of any other nation in the world. We 
 have a larger amount of productive real estate, 
 more miles of railroads, canals, telegraphs, j 
 and our inland navigation surpasses that of all \ 
 Europe. \ 
 
 Our coal fields and mineral wealth are inex- : 
 haustible, and of such vast extent as to defy i 
 enumeration in dollars. And with wise legis- 
 lation, our Government can pay all legal and 
 just demands, or fund them into thirty-year 
 3-per-cent. bonds. If the policy of the con- 
 tractionists is adopted, it practically prohibits 
 the Government and people from utilizing 
 only a moiety of these immense deposits of 
 wealth which, must lie dormant for want of ; 
 means to develop them. i 
 
 Our object from the first has been to impress ' 
 upon the minds of the people if possible, that 
 to utilize this enormous wealth, the Govern- J 
 mentmust furnish a circulating mt dium based | 
 upon the whole property of the country, includ. \ 
 ing Qovernraent bonds and gold and silver, j 
 in sufilcient amounts to supply all legitimate de- i 
 mands, was what the welfare of the people and ' 
 the best interests of the Government require. 
 To exhibit the folly and poverty of the argu- 
 ments,that attempted to prove that the Treasury : 
 notes were " not dollars," by shovdng the obvi- ' 
 
 ous truth that the entire wealth and capital 
 within the jurisdiction of the United States was 
 pledged for them, and could be taxed and sold 
 should it become necessary to redeem them, 
 other than redeeming them, as at present, 
 by receiving them for revenue, land, taxes, 
 etc. In one of our previous communications 
 we wrote the following paragraphs : Two 
 years of reflection, the situation of the finan- 
 ces and the country has convinced us that our 
 recommendations were judicious, and we re- 
 produce them, and desire the statements may 
 be well considered, for we are certain they are 
 of the highest importance. 
 We wrote as follows : 
 
 The Destructionists declare that this wealth 
 is only " a delusion and snare ;" that this money 
 was used only as an experiment during a con- 
 tingency. It certainly created real ships — 
 equipped and paid a real army ; it has erected 
 tens of thousands of real houses, etc. ; and the 
 assessors, upon oath, make returns of thousands 
 of millions of dollars in value added to the 
 wealth of the country since the issue of Gov- 
 ernment money. The poverty of their argu- 
 ment is discovered when they argue that, be- 
 cause a great improvement is invented by ac- 
 cident, it, therefore, should not be used, but be 
 destroyed. 
 
 To properly encourage trade, manufacture, 
 commerce, and assist, the Southern States to re- 
 build their waste places, and cultivate their 
 idle plantations, and stimulate the immense 
 agricultural interest of the whole country, pro- 
 mote public and private improvements, requires 
 the issue and use of at least the sum of one 
 thousand millions of Treasury notes. The use 
 of this amount would save the Government 
 sixty millions of dollaes annually — a 
 sum sufficient to liquidate the entire 
 National debt in about fifteen yeaes. 
 Issue this sum and the rate of interest will fall 
 from six to three per cent., all that money is 
 really worth, or any nation or the people can 
 afford to pay. This would enormously reduce 
 the public burden. Issue one thousand mil- 
 lions of legal-tender Treasury notes, and our 
 interest-paying debt would amount to only fif- 
 teen hundred^millions. With interest at six 
 per cent., ninety millions would be required to 
 pay the annual interest ; at three per cent., 
 forty-five millions of dollars. Can any honest 
 sane man deny, that if money could be obtained 
 at three or three-and-a-half per cent., that it 
 would not enormously increase the number of 
 houses, steamers, railroads, etc.. and conse- 
 quently the prosperity and wealth of tlie Na- 
 tion ? 'Allow the buUionists and Destructionists 
 to fully inaugurate their policy, and the people 
 
50 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 will be called upon to pay tlie interest on twenty- mode to square accounts with Napoleon for lii3 
 five hundred millions of dollars in gold, or one [ base attempt to destroy republicanism on this 
 hundred and fifty millions jier annum instead continent. 
 
 of forty five millions. The Destructionists howl i With tico hundred millions gold in theTrea- 
 in answer, it " will inflate prices^ Statesmen | sury, one thousand millions of Goverumeni 
 answer this plain question. Is it the wiser plan ■ money could or can be kept in circulation ; and 
 to reduce the price and value of all the prop- with the aid of a properly-adjusted tariff, the 
 erty in the country from fifty to one hundred \ gold could or can be kept at liome and the Trea- 
 per cent., than to it to an equal amount, i sury notes kept at par in all sections of the 
 
 especially as the reduction in the value of prop- ; Union, and in all of the princijjal cities on the 
 erty would more than double the amount of in- , globe. The taxes can be greatly reduced, and 
 tei'est to be collected from the people? The man ' the people of this country, who are at the pre- 
 that answers or votes in the affirmative is unfit I sent time, in consequence of the free circulation 
 to represent a free people, either as Senator or i of paper money, the most prosperous of any on 
 Congressman. These propositions are of such j the earth, can be lifted to a higher degree of 
 vast and vital importance, and so plain, that the j prosperity and glory than has ever been wit- 
 people are certain to respond to tliem correctly, nessed since human governments were insti- 
 forthe subtleties of the Destructionists are van- | tuted. 
 
 ishing before the experience of the past four , Perhaps some will qaestion these statements, 
 years. j and repeat the old falsehoods, that the Govern 
 
 If it is inquired, when you would have the j ment was obliged to issue gold-bearing bonds 
 money redeemed ? we answer, the Government ! in order to have its loans taken and obtain 
 are continually redeeming it at the rate of more ; funds to prosecute the war. Answer. The 
 than a million of dollars per day; and every ' United States Government, after it had issued 
 man in the United States stands ready to re- the first 200 millions of paper money, had the 
 deem it, by gladly exchanging any property he ; finances of the Nation as completely under its 
 has for it ; no one requires or wishes gold for ; control as it had the Army and Navy. The mo- 
 it, except a few Ballionists and the foreign ; ment the State banks suspended the payment 
 merchants who wish to ship it to Europe. The \ of their notes in gold and silver, they had no 
 Destructionists— the men that howl the loudest I legal or moral right to complain; and the 
 anddeclare that Treasury notes are only ''trash," ; financial power they previously possessed, and 
 are " not money," etc. — are the most anxious to ' with which they vainly attempted to coerce the 
 redeem it by selling tiieir bi^st goods and wares, | Government, fled away with the few millions 
 and take it in payment. We know some very of specie in their vaults, and, happily, forced 
 able and eloquent editors who exhaust the them, in order to save themselves, to become 
 whole vocabulary of vile epithets in denounc- , co-workers with the people to save the Union, 
 ing it, yet they resort to all legitimate efforts They became servants instead of dictators, 
 to exchange their papers for it, and at the most i It is true our bonds could not have been 
 reasonable rates ; and we are not surprised ; i negotiated in the European markets unless the 
 for that which this truly great, rich and ^irtuous interest was payable in gold ; and this was why 
 nation coins or stamj^s is and no mistake. ^ the interest ought to be paid in United States 
 
 We are aware that it will not readily pass in currency, to prevent them from being purchased 
 Europe— neither will our coin pass at par beyond in vast quantities below par by Eiiropeans. 
 our own dominions; but this is no proof that Tlie greatest objection made to this beneficent 
 they are not good and valid in the United j legislation is, that it will increase the price 
 States. i OF GOLD. No nation or people was ever in- 
 
 It is as certain as truth, that if the United \ jured by legislation that increased the value of 
 States Treasury had retained (as it should and the property and labor of the country. And if 
 could have done) the principal portion of the the price of gold should suddenly be increased 
 500 millions of dollars of gold it has received one hundred per cent., the Government, which 
 into its vaults — and promptly shipped the cotton ■ holds the principal portion of the gold in the 
 and other Southern staples that were taken from country, could, provided it was sold, be bene- 
 the Rebels, both of these monster monopolies — fitted to the extent of the amount of the pre- 
 the Bank of England and France — would have mium received. And if our importations are 
 been obliged to suspend payments of specie; excessive, as some allege, it would retard them, 
 and the United States Government would have and stimulate exports of grain, butter cheese, 
 been at the present time the Grand Master of meat lumber, etc., as it did in the years of 18G3 
 the Financial World, and the old 6 per cent, and 1863, when the premium was at the high- 
 gold-bearing bonds would be selling at 100 per est. The premium on gold is also a premium 
 cent premium, and the principal portion of to the farmers, and allows them to more than 
 public debt funded in long bonds drawing only compete with the agriculturists of other conn- 
 s' per cent., and these would have been quoted tries, and the premium on gold is eqtial to a 
 above par. This was the correct method to ! tarifiF of the >ame per cent, or importations, 
 settle with England for her piracies, and the We are aware that this proposition is vigor- 
 
USURY, THE CURSE OF CIVILTZATIOX, Etc. 
 
 51 
 
 ously denied, but is a stubborn fact nevertlie- ' 
 less.* It increases the prices of foreign goods, 
 as does a tariff. 
 
 Senators and Congressmen, please remember 
 that liigh jy rices for every thing or article made 
 by human hands, is a benefit. Labor, and the 
 produce of labor, vvhether it is the product of 
 manual or intellectual, requires to be prosper- 
 ous and healthy to command high prices The 
 only cheap thi/tg or article that is required for 
 the happiness of the people of the United States 
 is cheap money. Lo'.v prices is a curse to the 
 laborers, farmnrs, mechanics, artisans, manufac- 
 turers, merchants, etc. 
 
 If the manufacturers, or the Governments of 
 England and France, would contract and agree 
 to furnish the whole population of the United 
 States for the next ten years with all the hats, 
 boots, shoes, clothing, tools, etc., f ree of cost, it 
 would viestroy the prosperity of the people and 
 bankrupt the Government. High prices is the 
 inducement of labor — it is the incentive and 
 reward of industry that stimulates and increases 
 production. 
 
 It is charged that high prices, caused by the 
 issue of paper money, has demoralized the peo- 
 ple of the United States. This is afoul, malic- 
 ious slander. The people of tiiis country, dinging 
 the reign of paper money, were never 'jefore so 
 wise, brave, patriotic, industrious, charitable, 
 and virtuous as they were during and since the 
 war, and this is triumphantly proved by the 
 statistics of building, of manufactures, of the 
 issue of patents, of agriculture, etc., as well as 
 by their patriotic course in sustaining the 
 Union and freedom and the Union Party. It 
 it is a foul and wicked slander to say that the 
 people are demoralized. It is only the Usurers 
 and Destructionists who are demoralized. 
 
 Tliese Destructionists are continually de- 
 claiming for "economy," and oppose every ap- 
 propriation for public improvements, etc., but 
 constantly vote to pay the highest rates for the 
 interest of money. Tens of millions of dollars 
 in specie are given to men who never furnished 
 the Government a single ounce of gold. They 
 are in great haste to have the obligations that 
 are payable in currency, and those drawing no 
 interest, put into gold-bearing bonds, and any 
 proposition that tends to reauce the price of 
 money, or the rate of interest, is an abomination 
 in their sight. 
 
 One thousand millions is not one dollar in ex- 
 cess of what the people of this Nation absolute- 
 ly require to properly cultivate their lands, to 
 make necessary improvements, and conduct the 
 business of the United States. 
 
 There are 3,000,000 of farmers and planters 
 who do not keep bank accounts, and who re- 
 quire to keep on hand, on an average, §200 
 each— $600,000,000. 
 
 There are 2,000,000 of mechanics, small 
 traders, etc., who require, on an average, $100 
 each— $200,000,000. 
 
 Then there are tens of thousands of mer- 
 chants, manufacturers. Insurance Companies, 
 Steaniboai, Railroad and Canal Companies, 
 Bankers and Banks, etc., who require other 
 hundreds of millions of a circulating medium ; 
 and, at the very least, all these interests com- 
 bined, require the round sum of one thousand 
 millions of dollars to make their purchases and 
 exchanges ; and what good and sound reason is 
 there why the Government, which is so heavily 
 in debt, should not have the immense profit of 
 sixty 'millions of dollars per annum, equal, at 
 the present rate of gold, to ninety millions of 
 dollars. For supplying these business facilities, 
 in some respects paper money is better than gold. 
 If gold is destroyed by fire or in the sea, it is 
 lost. If a paper dollar is lost or destroyed, the 
 Government debt to an equal amount is re- 
 duced, etc. This sitm is not too large. It is 
 curious that the only individuals who will dis- 
 imtethis indisputable fact are men who keep on 
 hand from $25,000 to $1,000,000 to "operate" 
 with. 
 
 We do not expect to convince men who are 
 blinded by avarice, mammon, or self-interest, of 
 the wisdom of this policy ; but we do expect 
 that all fair, candid, intelligent statesmen, who 
 love their country and their countrymen, and 
 who acknowledge that the toiling millions are 
 " The People," and the few hundred thousands 
 who live on the interest of money are only an 
 insignificant minority of the people. \Ye ex- 
 pect, or at least wish, that lcd>or and humcuiity 
 shall be considered superior to capital, and 
 should be first protected and fostered by just 
 enactments. It is extreme folly for the Govern- 
 ment to destroy hundreds of millions of its own 
 money, and borrow other hundreds of millions 
 to replace it, paying high rates of interest for 
 the same ; and, especially, when it is acknow- 
 ledged it would increase the wealth of rich and 
 impoverish all of the lower and middling classes 
 of society. 
 
 These men clamor about a " crash, collapse, 
 bankruptcy," etc., in the future, if we continue 
 to use this money, professing to believe it 
 would be a great calamity ; but are exerting 
 their utmost endeavor to have distress and ruin 
 plunged upon the people at once, and say it 
 would be a blessing. May our wise, true, and 
 patriotic Senators and Congressmen avert 
 the great calamity that the Destructionists are 
 preparing for the destruction of the Union 
 Party and our glorious Republic. 
 
 There are four men in New York City who 
 I are worth two hundred millions of dollars, 
 ; five in Brooklyn worth fifty millions, twenty- 
 one other gentlemen in New York worth one 
 hundred and fifty millions. This money and 
 I property in ten years will accumulate to eight 
 I hundred millions. In twenty years, sixteen 
 
59 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 hundred millions ; in thirty years, to thirty- j 
 two hundred millions — a sum larger, by one- j 
 fourth, than the public debt of the United 
 States. The property of these persons pro- 
 duces over and above seven per cent. — a sum 
 suflBcient to pay the expenses of their families, 
 and there will be no diminution of the principal. 
 
 We state the facts, and shall allow the read- 
 ers to make the deductions, and calculate or I 
 imagine the certain result. 
 
 Mr. Astor is the largest landlord in the city, 
 and he fixes the price of rents, and it is well 
 known, and especially for the last few years, 
 that he has increased them enormously ; in 
 some cases, several hundred per cent. 
 
 Much of Mr. Astor's immense fortune has 
 been reaped by the foreclosure of mortgages. 
 We are cognizant of a foreclosure suit he com- 
 menced against a lady, on one of the finest 
 stores in Broadway, during the panic of 18G1, 
 although the interest was regularly paid, and 
 his agents were loaning on real estate at the 
 time. The lady, who could but ill afford it, 
 was forced to sacrifice one hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars ; and as the lady was the j 
 wife of tl:e writer, the transaction is fully ap- 
 preciated. 
 
 A. T. Stewart is a very enterprising man, 
 but it would be interesting to know how many 
 hundreds or thousands of merchants have 
 failed, and their families rained, in conse- 
 quence of his enormous capital and manner of 
 conducting business. It is questionable if 
 the largest importers of foreign goods are the 
 most beneficial to the country. 
 
 Commodore Vanderbilt, we think, is one of 
 the best business men, the greatest calculator 
 and financier the country has ever produced. 
 He is engaged at the present time in perfect- 
 ing the consolidation of a number of our great 
 railroad companies, and forming the greatest 
 monopoly that has ever been known in this 
 country or in the world. Under his able man- 
 agement the stock dividends, and probably the 
 ■tock, will be largely increased. It is proba- 
 ble that the roads and machinery will be im- 
 proved. But it is certain that the public will 
 pay the expense, and be subject to the con?ol- 
 'dated power of a giant monopoly. 
 
 I Daniel Drew is the principal proprietor 
 j of our " floating palaces," and is the greatest 
 " operator" in stocks in Wall street, and uses 
 some of the gains made in cornering the 
 " bulls " and " bears " of the Stock Exchange 
 in building theological seminaries. This looks 
 like "cornering" Satan, and compelling him 
 to furnish tools to demolish himself. But the 
 I question is not one of private character, but 
 one as to the duty of the Government under 
 the circumstances. We believe it is the first 
 duty to protect the public from the encroach- 
 ments of capital ; that the rate of interest 
 should be reduced ; that the Government 
 should construct and own the great national 
 highways, railroads and ship canals, and op- 
 erate them for the benefit of the people, and 
 not repeat the folly of giving a sufficient 
 amount of bonds and lands to build a road (as 
 it has done in the case of the Pacific Road) to 
 speculators, who will make it an odious mo- 
 nopoly. This road should be owned by the 
 public, and operated for their benefit. 
 
 There is a plausible, but fahe, argument 
 used in favor of high rates for the use of money 
 in the United Statas. It is said that in new 
 and flourishing countries like this the people 
 can afford to pay higher rates of interest than 
 the people and governments of other and 
 older nations. If we can, capitalists have no 
 right to take advantage and appropriate to 
 themselves the products of labor without ren- 
 deriug a full equivalent. Those who settle in 
 new States suffer great deprivations, and de- 
 serve the full value for their enterprise and 
 sufferings, and should not be compelled to pay 
 indirectly through the Government tax-gath- 
 erers, or directly to capitalists, more than 
 three per cent, for the use of money, especially 
 as it can be demonstrated that there is no ne- 
 cessity for paying more. 
 
 General Grant is acknowledged to be one of 
 the greatest generals of this age, or of any age, 
 and is greatly beloved for his sterling quali- 
 ties of head and heart ; his countrymen justly 
 appreciate his invaluable services, and well 
 delight to bestow upon him the highest honors 
 and rewards of the nation. 
 
 The Republican statesmen which compose 
 
COXCLUSIOX. 
 
 53 
 
 the present Senate and House of Representa- 
 tives guided the Ship of State through the 
 fierce storms and dark mists of a long and tre- 
 mendous civil war, and by their wisdom 
 and prudence, though clogged and hampered 
 by the treachery of a President elected by an 
 assassin, and a Secretary of the Treasury work- 
 ing secretly to " rehabilitate " traitors and de- 
 stroy the prosperity of the country, have 
 gained the admiration of the wondering na- 
 tions of the earth, and of all just and good 
 men — have conquered armed rebellion, dis- 
 armed treason ; have installed freedom and 
 manhood suffrage ; have fed the hungry, 
 clothed the naked, visited the sick, and have, 
 by legislative enactments, embodied the God- 
 like principles of the Xew Testament and the 
 Declaration of our Independence. 
 
 They created a currency-money that has, iu 
 five short years, wrought millions of beneficent 
 miracles, creating wealth rivaling that of the 
 Indies and of ages, confounding the wisdom 
 of the wise, overthrowing theories supposed 
 to be founded in truth, but rotten and false, 
 because oppressive. Their record is indeed 
 glorious. 
 
 But if, after all of these triumphs in peace 
 and war, they now allow the interests of the 
 masses to be sacrificed to avarice and capital- 
 ists, their glory will depart, and their power 
 will vanish, for the American people are en- 
 lightened, and determined to be free and in- 
 dependent. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 We wish Congress and the public not 
 to lose sight of the important fact, that the 
 capitalists are not so much opposed to the 
 kind of money in circulation, as to the quanti- 
 ty. And this puzzles some honest men, who 
 cannot understand why they do not assist 
 them in their efforts to " resume specie payment 
 note'' Cheap money and low rates of interest 
 is what they are fighting against, but under 
 cover, and this interpets their haste to have 
 Congress issue long bonds. 
 
 They are aware that the Government, having 
 a monopoly of the currency, possess the power 
 of altering the rate of interest. They deny it, 
 and denounce the principle, but they know it 
 
 j is true, and they know if the Government uses 
 I Treasury notes freely, it will, or can, control 
 I the money market, and they also know, if it 
 i reduces the rate of interest, and issues long 3- 
 per-cent. gold bonds, that it will very soon be 
 able to resume specie payments. They profess 
 to believe that the bills of the National banks 
 are superior to the Treasury notes. But as 
 the Government dues, revenue, taxes, etc., are 
 paid in greenbacks, they j ossess a value inde- 
 pendent of their being convertible into specie. 
 And everybody should know the logical and 
 indisputable fact that the rate of interest ex- 
 pands and increases trade, industry and pro- 
 duction, or dwarfs it and contracts improve- 
 ments and decreases the demand for labor, for 
 these rise and fall with the same regularity 
 and precision that a thermometer indicates 
 the state of the atmosphere, high rates or 
 price for money freeze up the fountain-springs 
 and streams of genial prosperity. Low rates, 
 cheap money, is genial sunshine making- 
 glad the whole face of society, filling the 
 ivers and brooks with the pleasant music, and 
 hum of contentment, of well-rewarded labor. 
 
 The Secretary of the Treasury should not be 
 allowed to exchange gold bonds for those bear- 
 ing interest in currency and especially the 5-20 
 for 10-40. The Government should authorize 
 . $1,500,000,000 of thirty-year 3-per-cent. bonds, 
 and increase the circulation of Treasury notes 
 . gradually during the next five years to the 
 i amount of the public debt, not including the 
 I 111,500,000,000 of 8 per cents. 
 I If Congress lias sufiicient pluck and wisdom 
 I to do this, the cry of distress will be forever 
 I hushed. In all this broad and rich land joy and 
 j gladness will sing the songs of peace and 
 i plenty, repudiation and revolution will be for- 
 I gotten, the South will blossom like the rose, 
 j the Western States will leap like young 
 i giants, the North and East will level the 
 j mountains and fill up the valleys, the rich will 
 grow richer, until the next, and more enlight- 
 1 ened generation, which will compel them to 
 i loan money at one per cent., or compel the 
 ! Government to furnish a means, or measure of 
 ; values, to exchange property and labor, at cost. 
 j The parties stand divided at present, 
 nearlv on this wise : a few hundred million- 
 
54 
 
 OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. 
 
 aires, several thousand ricli bankers and mer- 
 chants, and two or three millions who live 
 upon fixed incomes and no income, hangers- 
 on to society — all of them of course are shout- 
 ing to their utmost for contraction, specie pay- 
 ments, long bonds, etc. These are flanked 
 and sustained by the foreign merchants and 
 their agents, and by the " bear " speculators 
 for a fall in prices. They will " bet," sell 
 stocks "short," grain, pork to any amount, and 
 swear that the finances, the Constitution and 
 the country are going to destruction. Of all 
 speculators, the " bears " are the worst. They 
 are continually prophecying evil, and delay 
 progress and improvements, for they serious- 
 ly alarm the timid. These classes swarm at 
 the White House and in the Committee 
 Rooms and lobbies of Congress, flattering, bul- 
 lying and buying the members. The other 
 division is composed of some thirty-jive mil- 
 lions of the bone and sinew of the country. In 
 order to gain a subsistence and support their 
 families respectably, they are so constantly 
 occupied as to scarcely find time to study or 
 think on the financial question. The major- j 
 ity of these men who reason and reflect have [ 
 faith in Congress. These are the people that j 
 buy and sell, pull down and build up, spin j 
 and weave, dig gold and potatoes, make ships | 
 and erect palaces, excavate canals and build | 
 railroads, plant wheat and cotton, raise beef j 
 and pork — in short, they create the wealth of 
 the nation, and support the Government in ' 
 peace or war. j 
 
 The former class insist that the present 
 Congress shall follow the beaten track of the 
 old Democratic Administrations, and allow the 
 millionaires of New York and Boston to 
 mould the affairs of the Government, to re- 
 strict the circulation of money, and give the 
 Money Kings the exclusive control of the 
 finances, and allow them to depress the price 
 of labor and the products of industry ; to make 
 money scarce and dear, which is their beau 
 ideal of " healthy times." The working mil- 
 lions, on the otJier hand, by the sudden con- 
 traction of the currency last season, received 
 an unexpected blow which opened their eyes 
 The cause was so plain, and stood out in such 
 bold relief, that none but the most stupid and 
 stolid failed to see it. They not only saw, but 
 felt. They were alarmed, and have made up 
 their minds that Labor, before Capital invest- 
 ed in gold-bearing bonds, drawing extortion- 
 ate rates of usury, should be, and must be, 
 protected, and woe to the politician or party 
 of whatever name or profession that ignores 
 this just and righteous verdict. Dainty or 
 bloated capitalists, with money-bags and 
 jewel-cases filled with gold and diamonds, and 
 iron safes filled with Government bonds must 
 stand aside for the toiling millions, who raise 
 the bread, make the cloth, and build the 
 houses that shelter, feed and clothe mankind. 
 Capitalists, please stand out of the way, and 
 give these men an opportunity. Stand back, 
 gentlemen ! Stand back ! 
 
NOTICE 
 
 This Pamphlet is the last we shall publish upon the subject of the National 
 Finances. When we wrote the first we had no thought of writing a second, 
 or third, or fifteen. But " the exigencies of the times" seem to call for them. 
 And we arc elated to know that tlie doctrines and principles wliich we began 
 to promulgate in 1861, are now, and will be hereafter, fully discussed by the 
 people of the United States. Thorough discussion by an enlightened ])eople 
 will elicit the truth. And the important truths that have been demonstrated 
 bv^ the free use of Government Paper Money — Bills of Credit — cannot be liid 
 from the public. 
 
 The systems of the English, French and German theorists, as to what con- 
 stitutes 3/o>?.?//,have been exploded. Actual demonstration and common sense 
 cannot be obscured hereafter by fine sentences and the smooth rhetoric of 
 polished writers. 
 
 A large number of gentlemen have requested complete sets of our pam- 
 phlets, whitdi we could not furnish. Believing that they contain considerable 
 original thought and a large amount of important and valuable information 
 (they contain a complete history of the fight between the Bullionists and the 
 friends of Paper Money, etc., their arguments pro and co//,) we expect to 
 republish them the coming Summer, in an elegant volume. We pro]»()se to 
 print it with superior type and paper, and have them splendidly l>ound in 
 cloth, and ornamented with gold, which is oidy fit for ornament. The book 
 will contain about 400 large pages. Price §2. Persons desiring to procure 
 a copy will be supplied by sending their orders to our Printer.