262 



FINANCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



den fall of prices as would inevitably lead to a 

 crisis, and involve the ruin of many innocent per- 

 sons. The only method left is to contract the 

 circulation preparatory to redeeming it, to require 

 beforehand a certain accumulation of specie m 

 the banks, and I incline to believe also, to make 

 the redemption partial to begin with. This 

 might be done by redeeming at first only notes 

 of certain dates or denominations, or by redeem- 

 ing in gold, estimated at a higher price then par, 

 as was done in England in 1820. . 



Contraction is not an agreeable process, for it 

 involves a fall of prices ; and as such a fall is 

 never equal, some property and some people will 

 suffer more than others. But so it was in the 

 war when the unavoidable losses and burdens 

 to the nation were most unequally distributed 

 among individuals. The restoration of a sound 

 currency is one of the duties resulting from the 

 war ; it is a tax we have got to pay, and it can- 

 not be adjusted with exact equality. The burden 

 of contraction cannot, however, at its worst, fall 

 as unequally upon the people as the burden of a 

 depreciated currency. With a depreciated money 

 and a fluctuating standard of value, the condi- 

 tion of industry can never be healthy. Values 

 are all unsettled, and the fluctuations sudden and 

 violent; both labor and capital have irregular 

 employment, and there is a feverish habit im- 

 parted to all industries. So inseparable are these 

 incidents from a depreciated currency, that if the 

 national debt could be paid off to-morrow by an 

 issue of legal-tender notes, and there were no 

 considerations of good faith or national integrity 

 involved in the question, it would be a most 

 disastrous measure to the country, crippling its 

 business to a degree far more burdensome, in the 

 present and in the future, than honest payment, 

 according to the intention of the contract. Ir 

 there is to be any repudiation, let it be by a 

 square refusal to pay the bonds, Principal and in- 

 terest, as well as the notes, to be followed by a 

 repeal of the legal-tender act. Large numbers 

 or people would doubtless be ruined, and the na- 

 tional credit destroyed ; but not more surely than 

 by the greenback method of repudiation, which 

 adds the vice of hypocrisy to the crime of dishon- 

 esty ; while, on the other hand,, the private busi- 

 ness of the country, after the first violent shock, 

 would be gradually resumed on a solid basis. 



The heaviest burden of depreciated money 

 falls upon the poor. As 



annual reports, and as all the evidence still goes 

 to demonstrate, the laboring man is the heaviest 

 tax-payer under our existing currency system. 

 All the elements of his living have risen fully 20 

 per cent, above the rise in his wages. What 

 capitalist has to suffer so severely as this? And 

 it is not to be forgotten that the capitalist, be- 

 cause he is a capitalist, pays his taxes out of his 

 abundance the laborer out of his living. It is 

 one of the worst features of a debased money that 

 it widens the space between the rich and the poor ; 

 to those that have it gives more, and to those 

 that have not it takes away even what they have. 



Treasure Movement at Neio Yorlc, for 

 1868, and for the 'last Ten Tears. The 

 following statement of the movement of 

 treasure at New York shows the amounts 

 received from California, foreign ports, and 

 the ^interior, and the amounts shipped to 

 foreign ports and to the interior monthly 

 and yearly for the year ending December 

 31, 1868 ; also, a recapitulation of the same 

 for the last ten years; also, the amount in 

 banks and the Sub-Treasury at the com- 

 mencement and close of each month : 







