Money is a sign which represents the
value of all merchandise. Metal is taken for this sign, as being
durable,
[1]
because it is consumed but little by use; and because,
without being destroyed, it is capable of many divisions. A precious
metal has been chosen as a sign, as being most portable. A metal is most
proper for a common measure, because it can be easily reduced to the
same standard. Every state fixes upon it a particular impression, to
the end that the form may correspond with the standard and the weight,
and that both may be known by inspection only. The Athenians, not having
the use of metals, made use of oxen,
[2]
and the Romans of sheep; but one
ox is not the same as another ox in the manner that one piece of metal
may be the same as another.
As specie is the sign of the value of merchandise, paper is the sign
of the value of specie; and when it is of the right sort, it represents
this value in such a manner that as to the effects produced by it there
is not the least difference.
In the same manner, as money is the sign and representative of a
thing, everything is a sign and representative of money; and the state
is in a prosperous condition when on the one hand money perfectly
represents all things, and on the other all things perfectly represent
money, and are reciprocally the sign of each other; that is, when they
have such a relative value that we may have the one as soon as we have
the other. This never happens in any other than a moderate government,
nor does it always happen there; for example, if the laws favour the
dishonest debtor, his effects are no longer a representative or sign of
money. With regard to a despotic government, it would be a prodigy did
things there represent their sign. Tyranny and distrust make every one
bury their specie;
[3]
things therefore are not there the representative of money.
Legislators have sometimes had the art not only to make things in
their own nature the representative of specie, but to convert them even
into specie, like the current coin. Csar, when he was dictator,
permitted debtors to give their lands in payment to their creditors, at
the price they were worth before the civil war.
[4]
Tiberius ordered that
those who desired specie should have it from the public treasury on
binding over their land to double the value
[5]
Under Cæsar the lands were
the money which paid all debts; under Tiberius ten thousand sesterces in
land became as current money equal to five thousand sesterces in silver.
The Magna Charta of England provides against the seizing of the lands or
revenues of a debtor, when his movable or personal goods are sufficient
to pay, and he is willing to give them up to his creditors; thus all the
goods of an Englishman represent money.
The laws of the Germans constituted money a satisfaction for the
injuries that were committed, and for the sufferings due to guilt. But
as there was but very little specie in the country, they again
constituted this money to be paid in goods or chattels. This we find
appointed in a Saxon law, with certain regulations suitable to the ease
and convenience of the several ranks of people. At first the law
declared the value of a sou in cattle;
[6]
the sou of two tremises
answered to an ox of twelve months, or to a ewe with her lamb; that of
three tremises was worth an ox of sixteen months. With these people
money became cattle, goods, and merchandise, and these again became money.
Money is not only a sign of things; it is also a sign and
representative of money, as we shall see in the chapter on exchange.
