Liberty advocate. [volume] (Liberty, Miss.) 1835-1866, 1839-12-05

gin, called Bills Of Exchange This oOV'a'es 'no
Inconvenience oil space, but trade embraces tune,
and to meet that exigency, civilization unu
commerce rely upon confidence between man
and man,-they make credit tangible and avail
able, and take and use promise Of future pay
ment, az present equivalent They call these
representation, Promissory No,oS, when they
RELY upon the general solvency and honesty
thai il, the credit Of the maker and endorsers;
and they call them Bank Notes, either private
or incorporated. when they rest for their creu''
on specific fund appropriated for their r re,
demp.ion, and which they represent hese
Noles, together with Coin, makeup Currency
and such is It's history.
As there is limit 10 the actual amount oil coin
which can be in country, and, as from the
intrinsic value Of It's material, il Is ITSELF an 90
ect OF purchase, import and export 10 Destroy
wholly credit or the use any representatives.
Of coin, would be to annihiate trade and civil
zauon, to curail circulation, in these UnIled
States for instance, from four hundred Millions
aggregate Of our annual trade and currency,
down to eighty millions the largest actu~ a
mount of coin that the most favorable crcum
stances have brought, but can hardly keep IN
our COUNTY. Whatever amount Of trade b,, Is
over thW, must, if you destroy Credit and Bills,
be the old, petty and narrow surplus, which
can be done by barter and swap.
1t were idiocy to disroy credit, notes and
representative currency; but on the other hand
it were madness TO let 1t run unreguIated. NO
one can fear or blame it, when it is based upon
equivalent value FOR redemption; and as little
as one who appreciates moral certainty ought
to be alarmed at tina, due proportion of surplus
which commercial experience has found to be
safe. II a promsor in active business, wheth-
err an individual or corporate Bank, issue and
circulate in daily trade, transactions three
times as much in notes payable on demand, as
he has coin by him 10 pay, 1t is as morally
certain, by the ascertained experience of chan
ces, that he will have enough TO pay every one
who will, in The common course OF events, call
upon him for specie, as any event upon which
we do the slightest business; and he must be
a willing who refuses to act upon such certain
~, or who asks greater 1t is true, that every
body who trusts to this mathematical certainty,
will run the risk of personal dishonesty: to fold
our hands and do no business for livelihood
on that account, would be to live anachronism,
and go back at once TO the times of the strong
hand, to savage life. Such a coward must not
barter without both his hands outstreched at
once to give his own and clutch his co.deoler's
produce. There is no danger-there is nought
but good in the use OF representative credit.
How could one who lives do without it? 1t is
the essence ofcivIIizaton, the type and earnest
of individual and national improvement, We
canno. be improved and civilized without it,
and to moot the question of its destruction, is to
moot the question between such state and
barbarsm. But, if the use is so necessary,
the abuse is dangerous. The avenues to its
abuse are, misfortune, insufficient basis and
dishonesty. The Peoples Friend.