THE CURRE^^CY. 21 



stated ill the reports published by the Valuation Committee that 

 the money loaned out at interest and returned as such to the 

 assessors for the year 1850, amounted in the single county of 

 Worcester, to more than ?r).000,000— more than one-fourth of the 

 whole circulating medium of the commonwealth. What must have 

 been the consequence if all these debts had happened to fall due at 

 nearly the same time? 



You cannot monopolize corn, iron and other commodities, as 

 you can money: for to do so. you would be obliged to stipulate in 

 your sales that payment shall be made to you in those commodities. 

 What a commotion would exist in the community if a company of 

 capitalists should attempt permanently to monopolize all the corn! 

 But money, by the nature of the case, since it is the oxly legal 

 TENDER, is ALWAYS monopolized. This fact is the' foundation of 

 the right of society to limit the rate of interest. 



We conclude, therefore, that gold and silver do not furnish a 

 perfect medium of circulation: that they do not furnish facilities 

 for the exchange of all commodities. Gold and silver have a value 

 as money: a value which is artificial, and created unintention- 

 ally by the act of society establishing the precious metals as a 

 legal tender. This new artificial value overrides all intrinsic actu- 

 al values, and suffers no mediation between itself and them. Now, 

 money, so far forth as it is mere money, ought to have no value; 

 and the objection to the use of the precious metals as currency is, 

 that as soon as they are adopted by society as a legal tender, there is 

 superadded to their natural value this new, artificial and unnatural 

 value. Gold and silver cannot facilitate the purchase of this new 

 value which is added to themselves; "a mediator is not a mediator 

 of one." USURY is the characteristic fact of the present system 

 of civilization; and usury depends for its existence upon this super- 

 added, social, unnatural value, which is given artificially to the 

 material of the circulating medium. Destroy the value of this 

 material as money (not its utility or availability in exchange) and 

 you destroy the possibility of usury. Can this be done so long as 

 material is gold or silver? No. 



Whatever is adopted as the medium of exchange should be free 

 from the above-named objections. It should serve the purpose of 

 facilitating ^\LL exchanges: it should have no value as money: it 

 should be of such a nature as to permit nothing marketable, noth- 

 ing that can be bought or sold, to transcend the sphere of its 

 mediation. It should exist in such quantity as to effect all ex- 

 changes which may be desirable. It should be co-existent in time 

 and place with such property as is destined for the market. It 

 should be sufficiently abundant and easy of acquirement, to answer 

 all the legitimate purposes of money. It should be capable of being 

 expanded to any extent that may be demanded by the wants of the 

 community: for if the currency be not suflficiently abundant, it re- 

 tards instead of facilitating exchanges. On the other hand, this 



