property in the South American States, but have involved most of their governments in anarchy. Is Mr. Carey in the slightest degree sensible of the fact, that paper money-frauds, at different periods within the last hundred and twenty years, have swept over most of the countries of Europe, with the desolating fury of a tropical hurricane? In the chapter of Storch's admirable work, of which a translation was given in our March number, he says that the notions of John Law, "are yet widely spread; and a vast number of persons, of every rank, still entertain the erroneous principles of this famous system, although they possess the greatest horror for the consequences which flow from it." Mr. Carey happens to be one of Law's disciples, who regards these consequences with pleasure. Near the close of this chapter, M. Storch says: “The discharge of debtors was the only benefit which the system had produced-but this had brought ruin upon creditors, and impoverishment upon the whole kingdom." "The prices of the necessaries of life were tripled and quadrupled; it was no longer possible for those who lived upon interest money, pensions, or fixed incomes of any kind, to exist, without invading their capitals; artizans were without work; manufactures and commerce prostrated; interest, dividends, wages, and pensions were not paid; every class of society was made to feel the evils of actual poverty, while a small num. ber were overgorged with wealth."

These extracts from a work prepared under circumstances which give it the greatest authenticity, and which, wherever it is known, is regarded as one of the best that has been written on the subject, are repeated for the purpose of showing the practical effect upon a large scale in France of the operation of the identical principles of currency inculcated by Mr. Carey.

Nothing has induced us to point out to the reprobation of the intelligent and upright among our fellow citizens the profligacy of these doctrines, but a sense of duty to the common welfare which might be endangered by their dissemination without exposure. We do not impeach the honesty of Mr. Carey in advocating them. We shall more charitably ascribe his perversions and mis-statements to the blindness of his zeal. Individuals whose powers enable them to obtain but a feeble glimpse of a very limited portion of one side of a large question, often defend their narrow views with the greatest pugnacity and ardor. In his former reply, Mr. Carey stated that we were wholly ignorant of the principles of trade and banking. In his last, he suggests our total and unmitigated ignorance "of the first elements of political science." We are not inclined to bandy epithets with Mr. Carey. After a careful examination of his last performance, we have been unable to perceive any thing either of fact or argument which is not sufficiently laid open by his own unguarded statements, or fully anticipated and refuted

in our former articles. Unless some benefit to the public may be derived from the contest, we must hold ourselves excused from a direct encounter with an enraged man. The violence of Mr. Carey's temper appears only to have relaxed, when he gloats with complacency upon his discovery of the distinction between true and false facts. This he seems to regard as one of the most felicitous of modern improvements. After his usual fashion, he has served up several specimens of facts which are any thing but truths. However palpably false, he pertinaciously maintains them to be good facts for his purposes. Upon the whole, we are disposed to be satisfied with the indirect opinion expressed by Mr. Carey as to the substantial accuracy of our views, which he has appended to his last article by way of note, probably after his transports had somewhat subsided. Referring to Mr. Marshall, who has recently favored the world with the most elaborate, valuable, and authoritative publication which has yet appeared upon the statistics of the British Empire, he says: "The reasoning of Mr. Marshall is so nearly on a par with that of our enlightened reviewer, that he is authority for nothing except the official tables which he has collected. For any thing else we should as soon think of quoting the one as the other," We are sorry that the high value of this testimony cannot be more extensively appreciated by our fellow-citizens, the enormous price of Mr. Marshall's great work having restricted the knowledge of its merits to very few persons in this country: a copy cannot be purchased in London for less than one hundred dollars.

No quotations which we might be able to make of Mr. Carey's peculiar mode of establishing his doctrines would probably satisfy the curiosity of those who feel desirous of understanding the scope of the discussions which have arisen upon the merits of "The System," as the paper money theory was termed by John Law, who tested its capabilities at the expense of the prosperity of France during almost a whole century. We must, therefore, refer them to the articles, as written by Mr. Carey, for information-not of our views, but his own. When, after the perusal of his last article, any one shall be theoretically convinced that irredeemable shin-plasters are the only currency suited to a Democratic form of Government, we would still advise recourse for practical information to those who have been shaved, robbed, and ruined, in the periodical revulsions which have been produced for such purposes by the manufacturers and managers of paper currency within the last twenty years, before an absolute decision is made in favor of such currency. No doubt but some of the most docile and broken-spirited of these unfortunate victims may be induced to justify this policy, upon the same principle that a slave invariably prides himself upon the wealth and power of his master. The vanity and servility of these degraded individuals almost always increase in the same ratio with

the bad treatment they receive. We shall not interpose the slightest objection to any solace which may be enjoyed under the calamities brought upon individuals by paper currency, from Mr. Carey's entertaining narrative of the misery which he represents as existing in France, or any other nation whatever-whether produced by "The System" of Law, or any other cause-and whether derived from "Lady Morgan," or any other favorite statistical authors. But we must be permitted to suggest, by way of warning to the more sanguine, who have already suffered so much from their credulous faith in the seductive representations of speculators, that no position has ever been taken, or argument urged, in any one of our articles, as they may perceive by examination, upon which these ingenious statements have the least hostile bearing. On the other hand, were it worth the while to spend so much time and space upon them, it might be readily shown that the proper effect of these statements is only to corroborate and strengthen our views.

To return to Mr. Sedgewick's work: we find there no trifling, either solemn or silly, upon a subject second in importance, as the medium of social intercourse, only to language itself. Our notions of value, upon which such a vast variety of the transactions of civilized life must turn, are interchanged between men through the medium of currency, in the same manner as ideas on all other subjects are communicated by means of language. A common currency is, therefore, equally essential to the wants of society as a common language. Such false and fraudulent currency, as is advocated by the Philadelphia paper-money school, is quite as unsuited to be the general medium of business in an upright fair dealing community, as the flash language, used by the rogues of England to com. municate between one another, is to explain the ideas of honest men. Sound and equal currency enlarges commercial intercourse and forms the only durable cement for good faith and confidence in its affairs-while a fictitious and local token of value produces the same consequences as the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel; it is impossible to carry on mutual transactions, and men are compelled to become separated for want of a common medium. This was fully understood by the sagacious framers of the Constitution of the United States, in view of the privations to which the several States had been subjected for the greater part of the century previous to its adoption. One of the most important objects intended to be effected by these great men, was to secure the uniformity of the measure of value throughout the United States, as the most efficient means of binding them together. They had seen and felt the impossibility of carrying on mutual commerce between different sections of the country, and fostering a community of interest, while a discordant currency existed among the several States.

Whenever currency is alluded to throughout Mr. Sedge

wick's work, it is invariably done with a due regard to its proper functions as the exponent and measure of value. Nothing can be more lamentable than to find in a community where any laws prevail, excepting those imposed by the strongest, individuals whose principles or circumstances have become so desperate as to lead them to hope to involve the stability of currency in the vortex of blind partizan zeal. Mr. Sedgewick's range of intellectual endowment is infinitely above the vain and preposterous folly of striving to reconcile any portion of our citizens to doctrines intended to promote the designs of a few speculators, at the expense of the permanent interests of the rest of the community. Every page of his work shows that he is deeply imbued with the principle on which all just Government is conducted; that security of person and property can only be fully enjoyed under an equal and impartial policy towards the industrious classes whose labor has created all actual values. The thoughtless and unscrupulous rapacity which has been frequently manifested by those who habitually slander the obscure and diligent, as entertaining designs hostile to property and good order, have almost always occasioned the very violations of the public peace and security which have been complained of. Who is justly chargeable with the outrages which followed the failure of the Bank of Maryland, unless those individuals of high standing who deliberately concerted the stupendous fraud by which they intended to acquire great fortunes in swindling the credulous. and unsuspecting out of their hard earnings? Did the principal managers of that nefarious transaction expect that the Bank could be sustained under the enormous expansion into which they had involved its concerns in the ordinary course of things? The attempt which was made to involve the public Treasury in the success of their profligate speculation is sufficient to stamp reprobation upon this pretext. The naked fact that such men could have the hardihood to ask for the use of the public money for the purpose of enabling them to meet these grossly improvident, if not fraudulent, engagements, is the most powerful of any possible illustrations of the demoralizing influence of the connection between Bank and State. From the documents published by the former President of the Union Bank, it now conclusively appears that an enormous fraud was intended to be perpetrated-for rational beings must be presumed to intend the inevitable consequences of their acts. How inadequately the rights and property of the sufferers by such frauds are protected by the existing laws, is sufficiently shown by the result of this case. The difference between the operations of the Bank of Maryland and those of the Bank of the United States, can only be found in the more extensive power and influence of the latter, which enabled it to compel the whole mercantile community to become blindly subservient to its disorganizing

schemes. Thousands, who found it impossible to meet their engagements, were excited to the pitch of madness. Though we deprecate all violent outbreaks of popular feeling, we think it but fair to charge the odium of such excesses to those whose flagrant dishonesty occasioned it, and not to those unfortunate individuals who were ruined and rendered desperate with perfect impunity to the wrong-doers. Neither the Post Office mob, at Boston, nor the riotous assemblies in New York, collected for the purpose of compelling the public officers, performing their duties under the sanction of solemn oaths, to violate the laws of the land by receiving depreciated paper in payment for public dues--nor the Harrisburg Treason, where a high-handed attempt was made to subvert the Government of a State by military force-none of these instances of outrages against the laws were concerted by the industrious classes. In this country they have almost always manifested an exemplary degree of for. bearance and moderation, even when their rights have been flagrantly trampled on. It will be found, on examination and careful scrutiny into the facts, that the mobbish spirit which has occasionally threatened the security of property and the supremacy of the laws, as well as inflicted such deep and indelible stains upon the fair fame of our common country, has been invariably excited by that self-styled important class who affect to regard the industrious, frugal, and honest part of the community with contempt. In fact, high-handed violations of the law appear to have become a kind of aristocratic distinction upon which those who regard themselves as the first rank in society peculiarly pride themselves.

Mr. Sedgewick evidently regards poverty as a great moral and physical evil. The leading design of his work is to explain its principal causes, and to point out and illustrate its most efficient and permanent remedies. He has performed this interesting task with great ability and success. As we trust such of our readers as are inclined to examine and reflect upon this subject will recur to the work itself, we do not propose to give detached passages, which would furnish the means of judging of its merits about as satisfactory as the brick exhibited as a sample of the house, would enable the purchaser to determine upon the structure and arrangement of the edifice. There are one or two leading causes of poverty so general in their influence as to be wholly beyond individual forecast and prudence. They are so radically incorporated into the artificial frame-work of modern society, that we shall enlarge upon them in a point of view somewhat more extensive than the plan of Mr. Sedgewick's work brought within his range. We refer to the effect of fluctuations in the amount of currency, and change in the value of money, upon the property and means of livelihood of the mass of all communities.

Those who have superficially, or perhaps never, bestowed their