Wisconsin State Agricultural Society . 171 
deficiency against you sufficient to shake all public confidence. 
And that is what realized capital is constantly seeking — a panic — 
a shrinkage of value — and in the general sacrifice it commands a 
higher inteiest on loans, or invests at the ebb , while at work crea- 
ting a tide in the market in which again to realize. If realized cap¬ 
ital can control the basis of the currency, it can on general laws 
control the volume of the currency, independent of the special laws 
of control, which it now wields through the hanking privilege and 
other forms of special favor. 
But the parallel record which imparts a most serious aspect to 
this movement at Washington is to be found in the financial his¬ 
tory of England from 1815 to 1823, as effected by Sir Robert Peel’s 
bill for resumption. This record, however, was epitomized by the 
father of Sir Robert, when in speaking of it he said: “ Robert , you 
have doubted my fortune but you have ruined your country Show¬ 
ing most unmistakably the tendency of such measures to make the 
rich richer, and the poor poorer. And as this paper is intended for 
the suggestion of thought, it ought not to omit the suggestion that 
each producer refer to Doubleday’s Financial Monetary and Statis¬ 
tical History of England for information upon this subject. Thom¬ 
as Doubleday, esq., was a bullionist of the strictest school, but had 
to deplore the measures of confiscation, culminating in the Peel re¬ 
sumption that bankrupted half of England. 
Aside from the inadequacy of specie, the great error manifestly 
involving this whole subject, is adherence to the historical idea of 
a mixed currency, or a currency in which commercial value is 
blended with legal value. The commercial element being subject 
to commercial changes and conditions drags the legal element with 
it, and divests the currency of uniformity, stability and confidence. 
And, if the scarcity or indestructibility of the commercial element 
suggests or justifies it, it disappears with the first symptoms of 
public distrust, and is hoarded, thus increasing the chances of in¬ 
stability and insecurity of the whole. Herein the conception that 
the currency must rest on a basis of innate, inherent or commercial 
value is deceptive, because, without adding a particle to the safety, 
it infuses into the currency all the uncertainty that may pervade 
the market for such value, with the additional tendency in moments 
of distrust, to be withdrawn both from the market and the circula¬ 
tion. The experiences of Amsterdam, Geneva and Venice, as well as 
our own country and England, are illustrative of this. 
