case of the last two expansions and contractions ;-and in the second place, that it is entirely unwise and unsafe to delegate so enormous a power of practical sovereignty over all the moneyed interests and general value of property and labor of the country to any set of individuals, acting naturally on the same principles of self-interest that universally govern human action, a common law from which bank-directors are certainly not specially exempt. These were the leading errors of the reasoning,-the premise, namely, the necessi ty of some effective and omnipresent check, was, and so long as our "credit system" exists must be, unquestionably sound.

The revival of a National Bank, under a Federal charter, is, for the present at least, impossible. The opinion against it has been growing stronger and stronger. Its own friends in various quarters have even been seen to yield to the manifest will of the majority, and to disown its advocacy. And of all those former members of the Democratic party who, under the title of "Conservatives," now form part of the Opposition, chiefly in reference to the financial policy of the Administration, the greater portion profess themselves still opposed to a National Bank, and are too strongly bound by the pledges of their whole political life to be ever able to support the revival of such an institution. Ineffective and perni cious, then, as such a "regulator" would be, even that is out of the question. Shall there, then, be none at all? Shall the elements which are now so actively at work to bring about another and a more severe convulsion, within probably the space of two years, be allowed free play and scope, without an attempt to apply such moderating check upon their over-action as may be legitimately within the competency of the Federal Government? This is a question which, in all friendliness, we warn members of the Opposition not to make light of-and especially those few individuals on whom rests the responsibility of controlling the action of Congress.

The collection and disbursement of the public revenue in specie is the only efficient check now within the power of the Federal Government. The great evil now is, that there is no practical de mand for and circulation of specie. The currency of paper-money rests upon the confidence of the community in its "convertibility," and upon that alone. If there were a circulation of specie along with it, side by side with it, to any considerable extent, it would serve as the most efficient, moderate, steady and uniform check upon it that could be devised. If a steady demand is created for specie, paper may safely be left to gain what circulation, side by side with it, its credit may enable it sustain. The one then serves as a constant balance to the other. Any considerable depreciation of paper by excess makes itself immediately apparent by the comparison which must be every where sensible to every eye, with the uniform un

fluctuating level of this standard. A comparatively insignificant amount of specie circulation will suffice for this function of a "regulator," provided it be but regular and constant in its action. The quantity of the ballast that steadies the ship is insignificant in comparison with the bulk and mass of the whole, and the wide expanse of canvass which it spreads to the breeze. The amount of specie required for the fiscal action of the Federal Government, it has been conclusively shewn, will not exceed from five to ten millions of dollars. It cannot be more than a third or a fourth of the whole revenue, since by disbursement pari passu with collection it must perform the circuit three or four times within the course of the year. Even assume that it will require ten millions-there can be no pretension that there is not enough in the country. Why, that amount is not one-sixth of the addition to our stock within the period of the last Administration-and probably not one-half of the addition already made within the first half of the present.

What rational objection can be made to this measure? It will not impair public "confidence" in the banks: that is already strong enough, and too strong. It will, on the contrary, exempt their credit from all the vicissitudes inseparable from a connection with Government and with politics; and by placing all on a common level of exclusion from the transactions of the Government, it will deprive the Executive of the dangerous power of discrimination between different kinds of paper and different institutions. The amount of transactions of the Government is altogether insignificant in comparison with the business transactions of the community, so as in fact to bear no proportion at all to the latter. And it will place the affairs of the public treasury on the only solid and safe basis which will exempt it from liability to a similar derangement, in the approaching convulsion, to that of which the effects have been seen to be so deplorable to every sincere patriot. of whatever party, in the last one.

We repeat that this question is a very different one at the present session, from the character it wore at the last. And a necessitya most urgent necessity, growing out of the progress of the free banking laws, and the rapid inflation that is taking place in "the credit system"-exists now for the immediate adoption of the specie policy in the affairs of the public treasury, which has never existed in a similar degree before.

In the former Divorce Bills which have been rejected by the House of Representatives, the introduction of this principle was made very slow and gradual, out of regard to the sensitive state of public credit, and the immaturity of public opinion, at the time. It ought now to be made, in our opinion, speedy and total. The country is amply prepared for it; and the evil hour which this policy will avert, from the sphere of the public affairs at least, and

which it will greatly mitigate for the community at large, is rapidly approaching.

We hope at least that this argument, unanswerable and overwhelming as it appears to our calmest judgment, will be urged home in the debates on the subject before the close of the session. Let every man, and let the country, understand fully the high responsibility which rests upon every vote given on this question. And if the public treasury is to be compelled to cooperate with the general delusion of excessive confidence in paper issues, by the practical exclusion of specie from its transactions-if it is to be left exposed, as before, to the approaching danger of which so severe an experience has already been felt-if the morbid inflation of credit, through the fatal agency of paper-money, is to be suffered to continue, unregulated by restraint or check, even of so moderate a character as that proposed-let the responsibility of the inevitable consequences rest where it belongs. The voice of warning is raised loud enough, and long enough in advance. Wo to those who shall disregard it, and shall sacrifice on the unhallowed shrine of party passion, prejudice, and interest, the solemn duty to their country which that warning enjoins. The day is not far distant when they will be called, by the righteous indignation of a great people, to a retribution which will be a total and crushing political annihilation.

What will Congress do on this subject? No indication has yet manifested itself. Something must be done. We hear no voice raised in advocacy of a re-union of Bank and State. No one appears bold enough, or far enough behind the onward march of opinion, to venture it. Will a majority dare assume the responsibility of shrinking from the question, and cowering, as before, behind the inglorious position of inaction? A few weeks must decide.

We will suggest a compromise which may bring together the conflicting opinions on this vexed subject of the Sub-Treasury Divorce. The presumed control which that measure will give to the Executive over the currency, the increase of patronage it will vest in its hands, and the danger to the public funds in the custody of individuals, are the only arguments (if we may so misapply the term) which we ever hear against it. Futile and absurd as they have been over and over again proved to be, they have had a sufficiency of a certain popular ad captandum plausibility, to serve as a basis for partisan opposition and agitation. Now, we care very little for this question of custody. The practical divorce is the great principle involved. We have very little doubt that if the Opposition will unite with the friends of the measure on this ground of collection and disbursement in specie alone, the latter will readily give up that of custody. The money may be kept in special deposite in the vaults of banks, or incorporations of any kind, that may be

preferred. The Executive need not appoint a single officer. nor buy a single key, padlock, or fire-proof safe, if those of incorporated institutions are considered so much more secure. This whole clamor about Executive control over the public money, and defalcation of sub-treasurers, must be silenced by the offer of such a compromise, and the great question of the Divorce, on its essential principles, be presented in a simple point of view, stripped of incidental accessaries, which must make it impossible, as it seems to us, for the most reckless factiousness of opposition to object to the inestimable reform which it is calculated to introduce into the fiscal administration of the Federal Government. We should be glad to hear the objections which our Conservative friends, who have been seized with such a holy horror of Executive patentlocks, and of the creation of a dozen new public officers, and who are at the same time so anxious for "compromise" and "conciliation," will have to urge against this new form of the great principle of the Divorce.

As this subject has recently grown into sudden prominence and importance, we will take advantage of the few remaining pages in our present Number, to state explicitly our views of this question of "Free Banking," as they have been on several occasions misrepresented, and their consistency with the general principles of this Review, impugned. We regard the laws purporting to be "Free Banking" laws, which have recently been adopted or introduced in seven or eight States of the Union, as a very pernicious aggravation of the evils of the existing artificial papermoney system. If the actual state of things were suddenly blotted out of existence, and we had to recommence anew to construct a perfect system on abstract principles, we should look for perfection only in absolute unrestricted freedom; and every person, or combination of persons, should be at liberty to issue paper currency " ad libitum, to maintain whatever circulation the competition of others might enable it to acquire. We believe that such a state of things would soon lead to a sound and stable currency, founded on the specie standard alone; and that it would soon become evident that the element of credit in money is supported only by the artificial public character which is given to the paper currency, by unwise legislation hampering the free action of competition, and superseding that of the intelligent vigilance of the public mind. But to propose at present to introduce such a freedom into the midst of the actual existing state of things, is more absurd than the wildest extravagance of the most Utopian revolutionist. The present is indeed an age of reform, and the most delicate problem to be solved is that of the exact mode in which the great principles of abstract truth, by which so many vicious social institutions are to be reorganized, are to be introduced into practice-and not only the exact mode, but the exact degree of rapidity. We belong to the school that looks upon LIBERTY as the main principle of reform to the action of which we should trust, in preference

to the clumsy and too often corrupt operation of Law. But the world has been taught too many severe lessons of the danger of too sudden a relaxation of existing restraints, before a proper preparation of the public mind and public habits, to incline us to a headlong and reckless rapidity in this great work. Festina lente. Much as this Review has been denounced on the charge of "radical ultraism," we are by no means insensible to the value of this useful, though often greatly abused, maxim. That which has gradually become diseased by a long course of bad legislation, must be gradually restored to a certain degree at least of health and soundness by good legislation, before it can be safely left to itself without control or direction. Relapse and reaction are the chief dangers to be guarded against during the process of improvement and convalescence. Now in the case of this subject of paper-money banking, the mode in which we see the very friends of the pernicious principles on which it is founded, introducing into it the principle of freedom-the characteristic principle of the opposite school of opinion to their own-appears to us very bad, though bringing with it the consolation that it will precipitate the day of reform, even though at the expense of aggravated convulsion and suffering. Great questions of this kind must after all take their own course, and it is idle to quarrel with destiny. We have sinned and we must suffer, unto the third and fourth generationsand those who have sown the wind must be prepared to reap the whirlwind. It is still, however, worth while at least to provide a partial shelter from its coming fury. It was a curious circumstance to witness, in the State of New York, which has set in motion this ball of "free banking," the mode in which that operation was effected. The "Loco-Foco" party had been for years denouncing the existing system of paper-money banking. There had been such an agitation of the subject that a strong public opinion had been aroused, adverse to its further extension, and especially to its feature of monopoly. In this state of things, by the sudden and sweeping convulsion of the year of suspension, the Whig party got into power in the State Legislature. The creation of new banks, on the plan and model of the old, would not have been tolerated by the public sentiment of the State, even if there nad not remained a Democratic majority in the Senate. Accordingly, as the only means of evading the popular objection to any further extension of the system, the Whig party was seen to turn round, adopt the Loco-focoism of anti-monopoly, which they had been so long denouncing and ridiculing; and though they dared not and could not create a new bank, yet they passed a law authorizing the s creation of as many as should choose to come into operation, on certain prescribed principles, which, however, contained no material provision against the real evil of the system, its tendency to excess in the emission of paper currency. The restrictions with which it was accompanied were directed solely to the object of guaranteeing the security of the paper.

Now, the danger of ultimate loss to the bill-holder is an entirely insignificant portion of the evil of the present system; and its essential vice is quite independent of that circumstance. The great evil consists in the fluctuations to which it exposes the currency; and a contrivance which tends to increase the popular confidence in the circulation of the paper, by the ultimate safeguard of the pledges of stocks and mortgages, and at the same time to permit the free multiplication of the institutions emitting it, to the utmost extent that the expanding bubble will tolerate-is an aggravation, rather than a remedy, of the evil. This is an instance of the mischief growing out of the improper mode of introducing the great principle of reform, liberty, by a partial and ill-directed application of it, into the midst of an existing evil system, full of artificial complexity, and operating directly and powerfully on the well-being of society. It is in this case the mere removal of existing restraints upon the evil elements and tendencies of the system.

If the law authorizing the unrestricted creation of banks for the emission of papermoney, had been accompanied with some provisions for the purpose of keeping down the paper currency they should issue to the level of real, bona fide equivalency to spe