274 The Standard of Value. 



its most obvious one, viz., as an instrument of exchange. With the 

 introduction of credit and the practice of borrowing and making loans, 

 payable at a future period, and in many cases at the end of a long 

 term of years; or, as in case of the Euglish debt, without condition 

 as to the time of payment; it is manifest that the standard of the 

 money in which the debt is to be paid, becomes of vastly increased 

 importance to both creditor and debtor. It will not do now to call a 

 coin or a sum of money a pound, and, during the term of these loans, 

 reduce it to a third or to a thirtieth of its substance, and still hold it 

 to be the same value contracted for, because it bears the same name. 

 To the honor of the British nation let it be proclaimed that from this 

 period down, the standard of the currency was unchanged, except by 

 the gradual steps toward the transfer of the standard of value from the 

 silver to the gold basis, which was completed in 1816. And Great 

 Britain has found her abundant reward for this fidelity to an honest 

 and stable standard of value, in that her chief city has been made the 

 center of the world's exchanges for nearly two centuries as its result. 



I have thus at some length traced the history of the evolution of the 

 standard or measure of values, to show that by the general consensus 

 of the civilized nations of the earth, gold and silver have been fixed upon 

 as the best materials for such measure; and that as the nations advance 

 in commercial intercourse and in industrial progress, and especially 

 as credit and loans on long time become prominent in the relations 

 of individuals and of nations, the indispensable necessity of a stable 

 and invariable measure of values becomes of transcendent importance. 



A brief review of our own monetary history as affecting the standard 

 of value, will now be appropriate. 



The monetary system of the United States was established shortly 

 after the inauguration of the government under the Constitution, 

 under the advice of Alexander Hamilton, who was then Secretary of 

 the Treasury, in his report to Congress, January 28, 1791. Hamilton 

 had studied his subject with care, and he aims to decide all the ques- 

 tions involved in its consideration, with reference to the relative 

 values of gold and silver throughout the world. He says: " Contrary 

 to the ideas which have heretofore prevailed in the suggestions con- 

 cerning a coinage for the United States, though not without much 

 hesitation, arising from a deference for those ideas, the secretary is, 

 upon the whole, strongly inclined to the opinion, that a preference 

 ought to be given to neither of the metals, for the money unit. Per- 

 haps, if either were to be preferred, it ought to be gold rather than 



