5395. MONEY, Standard.—[further continued]..
The evils of this deluge
of paper money are not to be removed, until
our citizens are generally and radically instructed
in their cause and consequences, and
silence by their authority the interested
clamors and sophistry of speculating, shaving,
and banking institutions. Till then we
must be content to return, quoad hoc, to the
savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange
of our property, for want of a stable,
common measure of value, that now in use
being less fixed than the beads and wampum
of the Indian, and to deliver up our citizens,
their property and their labor, passive victims
to the swindling tricks of bankers and
mountebankers.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 115.
(M.
1819)
See Banks, Dollar, National Currency, and Paper Money.
