MONOPOLY OF EXCHANGE. 425 



laws, which the people can charge to the account of the 

 grand and glorious system of National banks, with their 

 privilege to contract the currency at will. 



u Those who endeavor to enrich one part of society at 

 the expense of another, find it necessary to act with great 

 caution and reserve, and to substitute artifice for open and 

 avowed injustice. Instead of directly altering the stipula- 

 tions in the contract, they ingeniously bethought 

 themselves of altering the standard (making big "honest 

 dollars") by which the stipulations were to be adjusted. 

 They have not said in so many words that 10 or 20 per 

 cent, should be added or deducted from the mutual debts 

 of society, but they have, nevertheless, effected this by 

 making a difference in the value of currency. " Prof. 

 McCulloch in the Encyclopedia Britannica. 



"At the Christian era the metalic money of the 

 Roman Empire amounted to the sum of $1,800,000,000. 

 By the end of the fifteenth century it had shrunk to less 

 than $200,000,000." 



Allison says: "The fall of the Roman Empire, so 

 long ascribed in ignorance to slavery, heathenism and 

 moral corruption, was in reality brought about by a decline 

 in the gold and silver mines of Spain and Greece.'' 



The darkest period in history followed the fall of the 

 Roman Empire, known as the dark ages. 



The silver commission says: "Money is the great 

 instrument of association, the great fiber of social 

 organism, the vitalizing force of industry, the protoplasm 

 of civilization, and as essential to its existence as oxygen is 

 to animal life. Without money civilization could not have 

 had a beginning; with a diminishing supply it must lan- 

 guish, and, unless relieved, finally perish." 



My countrymen! You see your prototypes among the 

 States of antiquity; your future condition is written in let- 



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