33 



■credit cau. Your potential voice makes the laws ; it makes constitutions — aye, 

 and unmakes them too. I do not say that you can find a Clinton — such a man 

 is God's benison on an age, — but you have the roads. Where there is an iron 

 WILL, there is an iRoisr way ! 



But again ; Agriculture is not only interested in the reduction of the cost of 

 the transportation of commodities, but is equally so in cheapening that other 

 operation of commerce denoted by the term exchange. 



The most obvious mode of eftecting exchanges is, of course, by the direct 

 barter of the one commodity for the other. But one difficulty in the way of 

 barter as a system of exchanges is, that commodities or products, are not mutually 

 and universally receivable. 



For example, the shoemaker wants a coat, but the tailor does not want shoes. 

 Pei'haps the shoes may be bartered for hats, but the tailor does not want hats. — 

 Perhaps the shoes may be bartered for coi-n, but the tailor does not want corn. 

 And thei'e is no predicting the number of exchanges, and the waste of time 

 necessary to enable the shoemaker to find some commodity which he can barter 

 for the coat. 



The difficulty hes in bringing together parties who will be mutually benefitted 

 by the barter. And this difficulty becomes aggravated by every step of advance- 

 ment in the division of labor and of employments. 



Barter, then, is obviously compatible, only with a low state of civilization, and 

 the necessity is early suggested, of providing some commodity which shall be 

 universally receivable, which the producer may obtain, directly, for his surplus, 

 and with which he may obtain, directly, the commodity which he needs; and 

 thus enable him to remedy the difficulty in question and diminish the expense of 

 barter. Such a commodity is money — it is universally receivable. 



There is another difficulty, with respect to barter, which requires to be stated, 

 in this connexion ; that, namely, of adjusting to each other the values to be 

 exchanged. The fai-mer, for example, takes his horse to market, desirous of 

 receiving in return various articles of smaller value, in the hands of different 

 individuals. As the horse cannot, from the nature of the case, be bartered, a 

 part here, and a part there, the series of transactions is altogether impracticable. 



The commodity money, then, in order to do away with the inconveniences 

 and the impossibilities of barter, must, in addition to the fact of being univer- 

 sally receivable, be capable of division and subdivision, so as to adjust it to all 

 possible values. 



Gold and Silver coin embodying these two qualities of uni\"ersa] receivability, 

 and divisibility at will, has been adopted, by common consent, and the action of 

 civil governments, as the money of the commercial woi'ld ; and is as distinctly a 

 part of the machinery of commerce, as is the railroad or the steamboat. 



