the government alone which has produced such disastrous results, from the use of paper currency in Europe! Where the people are themselves the sovereign power, as in this country, he finds that unrestrained issues of irredeemable paper are universally beneficial!

Now it strikes us that there is an obvious clue to this new discovery made by Mr. Carey. A kind of management wholly different in its form and object is essential to produce unlimited issues of paper money under the two descriptions of government. An absolute king has only to authorize the issue of paper, and it is at once effected, whatever may be the interests or opinions of his subjects. But where the people are themselves the actual governing power, as in this country, it becomes indispensable first to convince them that their interests will be promoted by exposing them to this hazard. Would our patriotic fathers have tolerated the paper currency which brought upon them so many privations, had they not believed that its issue was imperiously required by their paramount interests? Assignats were issued by the French people under a similar view of the necessities of the emergency. In both instances the ultimate effects of this fraudulent system were overlooked under the pressure which existed for the immediate provision of currency to furnish the means of defence against their enemies.Had not the evils of the system been inherent, the principle upon which the Assignats were issued afforded the strongest guarantee against depreciation. The national domain of France, possessing immense value, was pledged for their redemption, and was thrown into market for that purpose, Assignats being received in payment. In this respect they closely resembled the currency lately issued under the provisions of the Free Banking Law of New York.The redemption of this currency is ostensibly secured by the deposite of stocks and mortgages. But whenever a period of difficulty and distrust shall arise, in consequence of the inflation of paper currency, either with or without such security, a demand for specie will take place for exportation. A panic must soon prevail. During the destruction of confidence of which we have witnessed so many instances from the same cause, it will probably be found impossible to sell the stocks and mortgages pledged for the redemption of these issues. Their discredit will then become inevitable. But even this security, insufficient as we fear it will prove, wholly conflicts with Mr. Carey's views of the advantages to be derived from paper currency. To avoid all possible imputation of overstating his present notions, we will give his language on this point. He now says:

"The steadiness and security of the currency are in the direct ratio in which the people are free to exercise the trade of Banking and the right of furnishing currency-that the unsteadiness and insecurity which have existed have been the result of the interference of Governments therewith-and that the remedy therefor was to be found in the abolition of restrictions."

And after giving a distorted view of the legislation of some of the States-too preposterous to impose on any citizens of this country -he adds:

"New York has now gone further and has passed a general law under which all may associate for banking purposes, and for the supply of eurrency without application to the Legislature, so that the people of that State have now obtained almost entire freedom in regard to the trade in money. We say almost because even in that law there are regulations that will tend to prevent the action under it from being as advantageous as it otherwise would be."

Now we profess to be totally opposed to monopolies in every shape and form. We are strongly in favor of free trade in banking, and every other pursuit calculated to afford real facilities to the legitimate pursuits of industry and commerce. But every person of reflection who either possesses property or hopes to possess any, must feel after the experience of the last two years that the measure of value cannot be safely trifled with by currency doctors either with or without charters. If, in the present state of things, paper is to be issued and received in payment, its practical redemption ought to be secured by the most efficient checks. Under the operation of such checks the industrious and unprotected classes might safely receive paper currency-but without them, they should refuse every thing as currency but gold and silver. Where paper currency is practically intended to be redeemed in specie, its issue would afford a comparatively small degree of profit, to that derived from a state of continual fluctuations. The most important and useful banks in Europe have always been those which pay out no currency for general circulation but gold and silver. Even in England, oppressed as her productive interests now are by the incubus of the paper system which has grown out of the operations of the Bank of England, a large proportion of the Joint Stock Banks which within the last twelve years have arisen from the relaxation of that great monopoly, have voluntarily stipulated to issue no currency but that of the Bank of England, for which they pay the rate of interest ordinarily charged upon its loans. They have wisely preferred a dimunition of their profits to encountering the hazards incident to the redemption of paper currency during those periodical revulsions which the prevalence of the system inflicts upon every country where it has been permitted to take root. But the "right of issuing paper currency" without effectually securing its prompt redemption in gold and silver, which is evidently Mr. Carey's notion of Free Banking, is merely another name for free swindling. The design of his former publication was shewn in our former Article to be, to reconcile the citizens of this country to measures which might promote the scheme which has been long cherished, and at some periods has nearly succeeded-of banishing the use of gold and silver as currency from among the people of the United States; and not the slightest symptom of a denial of this intention can be discovered in the reply.

As he has no where favored the public with any exposition of the mode in which he proposes to secure the convertibility of paper currency, the perfection of which, according to his former publication rests on confidence, and not on the assurance of its redemption in specie, we may presume, upon the avowal contained in Mr. Biddle's letter, that the design of the Philadelphia school, of pushing paper currency into exclusive use among the people, still exists, for the double purpose of defrauding all our productive interests by its depreciation, and of exercising political control by means of the embarrassments into which it enables them to involve the people. We have no great faith in Mr. Biddle's formal abdiction of political power. Though the late scenes at Harrisburg were concerted before his declaration was published, the attempt at consummating that stupenduous outrage was made afterwards. Whenever the proper degree of expansion of paper currency has been reached, a necessity will be created for the charter of the United States Bank by Congress quite as urgent as that which existe last year.

The currency to be furnished by "the whole people," which is eulogized by Mr. Carey with so much enthusiasm, seems to be simply the resurrection of the shin-plasters which during so long a period expelled all sound currency from general circulation. After the experience enjoyed by the public within the last two years, we are induced to believe that those who did not participate in the profits of that admirable contrivance-which it seems, in Philadelphia at least, was ready for operation in advance of the suspension of the banks-are pretty well satisfied that even the Gold Humbug, the subject of so many refined witticisms, is on the whole "the better currency."

It may be urged that the evils growing out of this kind of paper currency will invariably cure themselves by their very excess— that the public will not permit itself to be cheated, and its highest interests trodden under foot beyond a certain point-that every body may be permitted to issue paper currency, since no body is obliged to receive it in payment.

All this is unquestionably true. But this is not the object aimed at by the paper currency speculators. Every body now possesses the full power of issuing paper currency, but the great trouble is, nobody is obliged to receive it. A further step is, therefore, required to accomplish Mr. Carey's views. It is so trifling and easy, that its refusal may well occasion all the clamor which has been excited against the interference of the Government with paper currency. It is only to receive all paper currency, by whomsoever issued, in payment for public lands, public taxes, and public dues of every description. Any government which would refuse so small an accommodation ought, indeed, to be denounced as hostile to the banks, to the merchants, and to the people!

VOL. V. NO. XIV. FEBRUARY, 1839.

L

Now we assent to free banking and to the right of the people to issue paper currency, but contend that it shall be left free to indi viduals to receive or reject it at their option. The receipt of such currency in public payments, places the whole community under the absolute control of a few speculators. Whenever our state and national legislators shall be prepared, by whatever appliances, or under the influence of whatever motives, to authorize the receipt and custody of paper currency which is not clearly and beyond all doubt equivalent to gold and silver, for paying the expenses of our public establishments, the great work of destroying the measure and value is accomplished. The universal imposition of depreciated currency then is achieved. Public creditors are compelled to accept it or get nothing-for no suits can be brought against the State or General Governments to compel the payment of their debts in the only medium recognized by the Constitution. When this degree of "steadiness and security" shall have been reachedto produce which, throughout the country, such incalculable distress, deprivation and loss have been inflicted within the last two years upon all our productive interests-who will venture to refuse paper of any or no value whatever in discharge of claims?

The peculiar insidious art of the publication on which we have thought it worth while to devote so much of our space, consists in this-that it takes up the unquestionably sound arguments in favor of free trade in banking, when organized on sound and proper principles, and attempts to pervert them to the support of the mischievous and rotten paper currency with which our country has heretofore been cursed. Mr. Carey would found his paper system on the basis of confidence alone, and is utterly hostile to the precious metals. The transparent object of his publication is to aid the great paper-money interests of the country in the desperate struggle they have so long been 'waging, to overthrow the Administration, and to counteract its policy of disconnecting itself from the papermoney system, and of introducing into its midst the regulating check of a moderate but steady demand for and circulation of specie through its fiscal action,—for the purpose of compelling the manufacturers of paper "currency," whether corporate or individual, to keep down their emissions in reality and bona-fide truth, to that equivalency to specie which they profess, as their highest merit when in their most perfect state. We have at present about the worst paper-money system in the world, and to it Mr. Carey, joining in the common partisan slang of the "hostility of the Administration to credit and commerce," would apply the abstract arguments which would be applicable to one of perfect freedom, and would denounce the "interference of government," even to protect itself from its acknowledged evils. Our views of free trade in banking would lead eventually to the circulation of a large proportion of the pre

cious metals, as the only staple and uniform measure of value, and would keep all the paper currency in circulation down to the standard of real "equivalency" and "convertibility." We would have the Federal Government conduct all its fiscal operations in that medium. Mr. Carey on the other hand would banish specie; considers a universal circulation of paper-money the best possible state of things; and while he perpetually invokes the name of freedom, yet by compelling the government and all public authorities to deposite the public revenues in banks, and to conduct all their transactions in paper, and by denouncing any attempt to promote the circulation of specie as hostile to that confidence which he makes the Alpha and Omega of his doctrines of currency, would maintain a system of exclusive paper currency practically, and to all intents and purposes, compulsory upon all classes of the community.

It can require no gift of prophecy to foresee the consequences which must result from abolishing the most essential safeguard of property, by the operation of the demoralizing influence of an exclusive paper currency upon the people. An insatiate thirst for gain, at the expense of the common welfare, would soon pervade our halls of legislation. Have not its indications already too often manifested themselves? Did we not witness, even on the floor of Congress, during the last session, a deliberate and concerted attempt to deprive the public service of the means of support in order to compel the public officers to accept the depreciated notes of the Bank of the United States, in payment for its bonds to the United States? While we are writing this, we notice the introduction of a resolution into the Legislature of one of the Western States, which will probably be adopted, declaring the right of its citizens to pay for public lands in the paper currency issued by that State, and asserting that the currency so received ought not to carried out of the State for expenditure, since in that case the public creditors might require its redemption in specie, or its equivalent. Whenever the people of the United States shall have generally adopted such notions of their rights and obligations, a universal competition cannot fail to arise between the several States for increasing their respective issues, with the view of depreciating their own paper currency at the expense of the others. Jealousies and disorders of a more formidable character than any we have recently seen cannot fail to spring up, and every day will increase their aggravation. The period will not then be far distant when those who have enjoyed the plunder which a general state of pecuniary embarrassment has enabled them to extort from the productive classes, will probably evince the same predilection as that described in our former article, for the organization of a strong government. This will be advocated on that occasion as the only effectual remedy for the very evils which its projectors have endeavoured