The Rhode-Island Republican. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1809-1841, 1835-12-30

good demands Our currency is a vast inflated
superstructure Of paper, resting upon thin and in
adequate substratun of gold and silver. la no
great commercial country does the, currency rest
upon such slender foundation in ours. France
has specie circulation of upwards, of five hundred
millions of dollars-thanks to her military chiefiain
who suppressed all bank notes under five hundred
francs England has a gold and silver circulation
of one hundred and fifty millions-thanks to her
Parliament which suppressed all notes under five
pounds sterling; the United States possessed but
about thirty millions Of specie at the time OF the re-
mova Of the deposites, and probably not quite the
double of that amount now. / hold the French
currency to be the best in the world; the English
to be pretty good, especially as erery note of the
Bank OF England is obliged to be paid in gold; the
currency of the United States | hold to be unfit,
and unsafe, for the country. Say we have fifty
millions of specie; it is only the third of that of
England, and the one tenth of that of France,
and wholly inadequate to sustain in n storm, the
paper fabric that rests upon 1t, and which Is
daily increasing in magnitude from the increase
of local hanks. The suppression of all paper cur
rency under twenty dollars at least, Il had much
rather say hundred, like it is in France, is
indispensable to the preservation of an adequate
specie basis, and to the protection of the country
from the ruinous expansions contractiOns, and re-
vulsions to which the paper system is always SUBJ
ject. The State Legislatures can suppress by law,
stDdu HOteS the congress Oh tbe u Sthtts eau
do much towards it by cutting off all paper money
from all payments to and from the federal govern
ment, and dropping all connexion with every bank
which will not enter cordially into the policy of the
government for suppressing the circulation of small
notes and promoting the circulation of gold.
But am too fast am running into detail, and
putting into letter what will be more suitable to a
speech on different occasion. l drop the subject,
to resume it on the floor of the Senate.
l congratulate you, gentlemen, upon the political
condition of the country. Democracy is in the
cendant in all her wonted spheres, and in some new
ones. In your own great state, where recent di-
vision has subjected you to reverse, and renewed
the Vaccinations of the sol disant Wings, am
joced TO find, in my journey from Pittsburg to Phil
adelphia, that the voice of democracy is unanimous
for the reunion of its divided parts, and that there
will be difficulty in finding the means of doing
what many good patriots determined to have
done. The Bank of the United States, that eternal
foe to the rights of the people and to the form of
their government SO far Opposed of as to knock un-
der for the present, and has descended from the lord
y state of the Lion, roaring through the forest in
search of whom it may devour and, sunk into the
condition of the PROSTATE opossum that affects to be
dead that IL may continue to live, and grns
treacherously to deceive in DEATH
Most respectfully, gentlemen, your obliged and
faithful fellow citizen,
THOMAS III. BENTON
Messrs. George NJ. Dallas, S. b. Davis, and
others.