Boon's Lick times. [volume] (Fayette, Mo.) 1840-1848, 1843-04-08
erea, and distinguishing incidents of the

great anO uIstiushtsh'uS huciuSuts of tue
Jackson era, and that 10 which we are dis
posed mainly to ascribe the long train of
evils and disasters 10 which the country has
since been exposes. On the ruin of that
one, rose several hundreds Of similar insti-
tu,ions; TO replaea its IS millions, upwards
Of 200 millions Of banking capital was legis.
lated into existence; to compensate the
withdrawal Of its 10 or 10 millions of
circulation, more than 100 millions Of pa
per. issued by nep banks, flooded the coun-
try. The great organ of the new empira-
cal school, the Globe, exulted that the
States would now furnish their own cur.
rency. President Jackson, too, with q
phwton-like folly, applied the lash to steeds
impatient Of restraint, and already threat
ening TO involve every thing in ruin--urg-
ing and stimulating the banks to those fatal
over-issues whence have sprung all our
calamitios. Still, for time, the great ex-
pertinent seemed about TO verify the vauuts
with which il was introduced. To the fair,
but moderate rewards of labor. soon sue
cceded, seemingly, inordinate profts--tora-
tional enterprise, wild and licentious, but
yet sanguine spirit of speculation.
The amount of money (the measure of
all other values) circulating at any given
time, regulates, with constant approxima-
ton to the ratio which that amount holds
to the whole property of the country, the
prices of every description of commodity.
Hence the constant increase of the curren-
cy between 1880 and 1887, (the amount of
property in the country remaining the
while without material variation. or at least
keeping no pace with the increase of the
circulating medum,) furnishing more and
more money continually in proportion to
every other commodity, produced by the
inevitable law of cause and effect, con-
tinual and corresponding rise in prices.
Surprising no other cause to operate be-
yond the mere increase of money, and
that the relative demand for every sort of
property continued unchanged through the
period, the doubling Of the circulating me.
dunn between the dates mentioned would
have been found exactly to double the
price of every commodity. But this rela-
tive demand is never the same from year
to year, and hence some commodities ex-
ceeded, and others fell short Of an exact
ratio to the increased amount of curren-
cy--while the spirit Of speculation, engen-
dered naturally, and, as men are constituted
necessarily by the rise of prices, seizing, as
il always does. on some favorite object Of
Investment, not only tended further to dis
iurb the equal proportionate rise of price
of each particular commodity; but infam-
ing the Imagination, gave an impulse to the
prices of these favorite objects, holding in
regard to them, no proportion whatever to
the mere increase of the circulating me.
dunn. Western land speculations was the
Sou,h.sea bubble Of the hour, and has ad.
ded--none can conjecture TO how vast an
extent-to the evils and distress necessarily
incident to the contraction of their issues,
and the calling in, Of their loans by the
banks of the country, in the process of a
return to sound convertible currency.
The voice of prophetic warning had, in
vain, been raised to arrest these mischiev-
Gus opinions-these fatal projects. Even
Of those who, at first, had hearkened to
these warnings, many yielded up their
convictions, to the decisions of the "better
currescy" era, and were swept into the
common vortex. But the great mass and
body of the people, judging, as they ever
do and must, from appearances only, fatally
mistook the false glitter of those days for
the sunshine of prosperity-enjoyed brief
day-dream of happiness, and awoke to
ruin.
In the space Of Seuen years the Banking
capital Of the Union ,oas increased BY more
than las millions Of dollars, and The circula-
ton rose from 81 to l49 millions, an addi-
ton to the circulating medium, in that brief
space, of 80 millions Of dollars-,ohile
Bank loans from 200 millions in 1880.
reached 525 millions in 1887, an increase of
loans in the same time Of 3a5 millions Of
dollarS!s
The memorable words-"I leave you,
as nation, prosperous and happy
drowned, even as they were uttered, in the
crash Of falling houses in the two great en-.
poriums Of our trade in the south and in
the north, ushered in the last sad epoch.
They have found continuing response,
slmos. from that moment to the present, in
avast and still widening wall of despair
and distress, as city after city, town after
town, and hamlet after hamlet, and finally,
the country as well as the towns have been
reached in succession by the pervading and
all desoating tempest. The States Of the
Union, all, without exception, straitened in
means or impaired in credit-some on the
verge of bankruptcy-some sunk in the
abyss of repudiation-and to crown all,
the Federal Government itself, the main
contriyer Of all these woes exposed to the
unspeakable shame Of being driven, as not
the Treasury, Of lS39-40, illustrates this state
af tha avis aaF, ba