5629. NATIONAL CURRENCY, Congressional control.—
From the establishment
of the United States Bank, to this day, I have
preached against this system, and have been
sensible no cure could be hoped but in the
catastrophe now happening. The remedy
was to let banks drop gradually at the expiration
of their charters, and for the State
governments to relinquish the power of establishing
others. This would not, as it should
not, have given the power of establishing
them to Congress. But Congress could then
have issued treasury notes payable within a
fixed period, and founded on a specific tax,
the proceeds of which, as they came in,
should be exchangeable for the notes of that
particular emission only. This depended, it
is true, on the will of the State Legislatures,
and would have brought on us the phalanx
of paper interest. But that interest is now
defunct.—
To Thomas Cooper. Washington ed. vi, 381.
(M.
Sep. 1814)
