6377. PAPER MONEY, Treasury notes vs.—
Even with the flood of private paper by
which we were deluged, would the treasury
have ventured its credit in bills of circulating
size, as of fives or ten dollars, &c., they
would have been greedily received by the
people in preference to bank paper. But unhappily
the towns of America were considered
as the nation of America, the dispositions
of the inhabitants of the former as
those of the latter, and the treasury, for want
of confidence in the country, delivered itself
bound hand and foot to bold and bankrupt
adventurers and pretenders to be money-holders,
whom it could have crushed at any
moment. Even the last half-bold, half-timid
threat of the Treasury showed at once that
these jugglers were at the feet of the government.
For it never was, and is not, any confidence
in their frothy bubbles, but the want
of all other medium, which induced, or now
induces, the country people to take their
paper; and at this moment, when nothing
else is to be had, no man will receive it but
to pass it away instantly, none for distant
purposes.—
To Albert Gallatin. Washington ed. vi, 498.
(M.
Oct. 1815)
See National Currency.
