5392. MONEY, Standard.—[further continued] .
We are now without any
common measure of the value of property,
and private fortunes are up or down at the
will of the worst of our citizens. Yet there
is no hope of relief from the Legislatures
who have immediate control over this subject.
As little seems to be known of the
principles of political economy as if nothing
had ever been written or practiced on the
subject, or as was known in old times, when
the Jews had their rulers under the hammer.
It is an evil, therefore, which we must make
up our minds to meet and to endure as
those of hurricanes, earthquakes and other
casualties.—
To Albert Gallatin. Washington ed. vi, 499.
(M.
Oct. 1815)
