State Convention—Interconvertible Notes. 225 
would be by no means adequately expressed by a fraction which 
should have one for its numerator and four times the many millions 
of his vast estate for a denominator; and the utility of the quarter 
is a constantly shifting value through all the infinite gradations 
which lie between the beggar and the Croesus. Emerson says: 
“We may pay labor at one rate, say ten cents an hour, but not an 
instant does the dime remain a dime. In one hand it becomes an 
eagle as it falls, in another a copper cent. For the whole value 
of money is in knowing what to do with it. One buys with it a 
land-title of an Indian and makes of his posterity princes; or pen, 
ink, and paper, or a painter’s brush, by which he can communicate 
himself to the world as if he were fire; and the other buys barley- 
candy.” 
Those who can gravely assert that the market value of money 
shifts with this variation of utility; who habitually talk of the in¬ 
trinsic worth of paper tokens; who denounce the principle that 
honest debts should be paid as a falsification of financial and polit¬ 
ical truth; who believe that a simple legislative enactment would, 
like the touch of a magic wand, lift the nation from the depression 
resulting from its errors and place it upon the summit of commer¬ 
cial prosperity—may well lament that the science of political econ¬ 
omy is so little studied and understood. 
The one idea from which the advocates of the greenback-scheme 
derive more support than all others, is, that to dismiss all thought 
of redemption, and if need be increase the volume of currency, 
would-quicken industry and at once restore us to permanent com¬ 
mercial prosperity. Nothing could be more fallacious. We have 
seen what the course of events invariably is in times of expansion— 
the rhythm, so to speak, in the rise and fall of prices, and the man¬ 
ner in which alone substantial benefit can be reached. But the 
gentlemen of the greenback-party are not, as a rule, speculators; 
they are seeking—as it is to be hoped we all are—the real welfare 
of the nation; they would by no means work with a view to the 
enhancement in value of a limited number of commodities in which 
they are especially interested. They are not looking to a rise in 
lumber, in iron, or in the two when manufactured, while the farmer 
should get the present low prices for his grain and wool, and the 
cotton-planter and spinner sell their products at a loss. But no 
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