The North-Carolina standard., 1837-07-03
THE ONE THING NEEDFUL.

Several OF our correspondents express re-
gret that we so seldom take a part in the
political discussions of the day, and compli-
mentus by saying that the views which we
occasionally express upon questions OF pro-
minent importance are calculated to pro-
mote the public good. Other correspon-
dents seem to concur in opinion with our ra-
pidly increasing subscribers, and say that
we had better write upon any subject, how
ever trihng, than engage in political contro-
versies, the interest Of which has long been
exhausted by repetition. In reply to both,
we beg to say that we have never suffered
the opinious Of our correspondents, nor ven
that of our subscribers, to influence our
course, which is guided solely by our sense
of duty, and measured by higher standard
of expediency than any which can be ap-
piled to our personal interests.
If we have temporarily Withdrawn from
the political arena, it is for this reason
there is now but one plain proposition be-
fore the people of this country, and that one
is so simple that they cannot fail to under
stand it, and to decide upon it with truth
and vigor, provided their minds be not diver
ted from it by the mischievous currents of
party feeling which are unhappily directed
against it. That proposition is, whether
the people of the United States shall have
a free and sound currency, or slavish,
false, and dishonest one. No party paper
can for a moment be depended upon in
reference to this great great question: and
every article respecting it which they write,
only tends to pervert, perplex, and obscure
1t. We cannot make it more plain than it
now stands before the common sense of the
people, and we are confident they need no
instruction more profound than their own
experience, no incentives more pungent than
their present sufferings to induce them to
decide it Alright They have learned that
they must have no more chartered money
companies, issuing bills of credit upon the
authority of law, instead of the authority of
property, which alone can render that credit
sound and honest They have found that
law cannot make either money or credit,
and that any law which endows special cor
porations with exclusive privileges, which
belong to every man in the community. is
unconstitutional, tyrannical and necessarily
disastrous. We must now have free bank
ing, based upon real property, or none at
all: Americans will be degraded, both in
tellectually and civilly,. beneath any people
that can be named, if they hereafter submit
to any other system of currency.
One of our correspondents asks us to ex-
press an opinion upon the abstract constitu-
tionality of chartered banks. But surely we
need not repeat what we have so often said,
and what is so manifest on the plain text of
the Constitution, that no State has a right
to issue bills of credit. If it endows corpo-
rate associations with the exclusive privilege
of issuing bills of credit upon the authority
of it's laws, we hesitate not to say that these
laws, in their restrictive character especially,
are unconstitutional.
Neither any State nor Congress itself, has
any right to know any kind of money, nor to
recognize any thing as money, but gold and
silver, and copper. Bills of credit, answer
ing every purpose of money, and absolutely
necessary to be used for money, may pass
freely between the citizens, and no human
power has right to interfere with the un-
questionable private right of issuing them
But neither Congress nor any State can is
sue them, except such laws as shall secure
the claims of the creditor against the debtor
We must have free private banning, based
upon real property, and regulated by the cred
it and competition which that property will
create. This is "the one thing needfaI," at
the present time, and the people will have
it.-New Era,