Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1847-06-30
"oPPosITroN TO TxRArsray $50 ENcE ~
=. =. RAVENNA, OHIO, EDNIsDA JUNE 80, 1917

years ago sitaWas not so; and it has come SO
under the operation ofswise laws, dating
their origin eal. the administration Of Pres
ident jackson, and dhought by many, at
thestinie of their adoption, to be fraught with
evil. The ertinction Of king bank, lord
ing overall other banks and persons, and
contending for political supremacy with the
federal government, and the. sresatrre ction
of.the gold currency, the, gift; of, God to
man fora standard and measure Of values,
werethe principal Of these acts, and the
ones without which all others would have
accommodating, Col. B. saidshe spoke Of
things, all of Mhie he SAWS and paffs0f
which he was. He was in that affair of
the bank and the gold currency, and not
merely as an architect of destruction but
also Of construction. He did not value very
highly the talent which can pull down, but
cannot build up-The blind man can pull
down temple: it requires the use of the
eyes, and of all the senses, to build one up.
In legislation, especially it is a fault to de-
stroy an existing institution, though defec-
tive, without proyidinga substitute that is
better. He had no ambition to emulate the
deed of the blind man, though strong; he
had no passion for defective OF den1i-legisla-
ton; but he did have passion for inyestiga-
ton, for research, for tracing events and
measures back to the beginning, and learn
ing the causes of things. There had been a
national bank bofore-founded in'9l-ex-
pired in 1911. He studied the history of
that bank, and weighed the conduct of the
eminent men who performed an act of pat
riotic duty, and made it die when its time
came. But it seemed to hin: they had done
their duty by the half only. The people,
the States, and the Federal Government
were all thrown upon the local banks, and
upon silver( there being no gold in that time J
for money. The resource was "a broken
reed. The notes of local banks were too lim-
tied in credit, too shallow in foundation, too
multifarious to serve for any general cur
rency: silver was to cumbrous. The next
year after the expiration of the bank char
ter, war with Great Britain broke out. War
was the great trier of currencies, as well
as of men. The local bank currency failed:
the people, the States, the Federal Govern
ment were without money, and without cred
it to borrow money. Deprecated bank pa
per became the only medium, and could on
ly be used at a great loss. The Federal
obtained small loans, as great
favors, at high interests, and Under par. and
recieyed in base deprecated paper. Treas
ury notes sunk as low as 335 per cent. be-
low par All government stocks were at
a discount; and, in fact, the war had to
stop-a drawn battle had to be made Of it
for want of money to carry it on. This
%Lo 0f nf fho
eminent men of 1911, who only did their
work, good work, by the half-put down
one currency without putting up better.
He saw this error Of 1911, and deter
mined to avoid it in putting an end to the
second national bank. He determined in
getting rid of one general currency, to en-.
deayor to get possession of another and
better. Gold was that other, and better;
but it had been dead for thirty years; and
the proposal to revive it had been looked
upon with pity by some, ridicule by others,
despair by almost all. General Jackson was
an exception. Heseized the grand idea at
once, made it an administration measure,
and brought to it all the strength which fol-
lowed his great name. Still there were
great difficulties. Some species Of govern
ment paper, as substitute for the notes Of
the bank, haunted the imaginations of ma
ny eminent men, and there was great dan
ger of sliding from one species of paper to
another. He (Col. B. took dead stand
against that, declaring that he would prefer
national bank paper to national govern
ment paper; and giving reasons for the
preference, not necessary to be repeated
here. Finally, government paper was CIV
en- up, and gold agreed upon; but new, and
insurmountable difficulties, seemed to pre-
sent themselves. All agreed that the rela-
tive statute value of gold to silver Us to u
was wrong, but no agreement could be had
as to what was right An error, it was
known, would Danish one or the other of
the currencies- one against which the
error should be committed. -.z.
An oyer-value of gold would Danish sill
yer from the country: and under value Of
it, though quite small, would leave gold as
it was-an exile from our land. The small
est amount Of error, a fraction of a cent in
the hundred dollars worth, would send the
whole of the over-yalued metal to the brok-
ers' counter,to to beapurchased at premium.
And in this necessity for absolute precision,
there was room for all the diversities of the
human mind, and for all the rash or timid
calculations Of the fearful or sanguine. Fif-
teen and half, and fractions between that
and sixteen, was the field of debate,' with+
out coming to conclusions. 'Fhe eighteen
bank presidents of the city of New York,
headed by Mr.. Gallatin, ,nlemorlalized Con-
gress in favor Of Is and half and frac-
tions. All were against l6. He Mr.aB J
took his stand for l6 to l.. Without embar-
RAISING himselfin interminable calculations,
he took the practical commercial view of
the question: He looked to the countries
which had so succeeded in equalizing the
two currencies as to make them circulate
together; and found the double circulation
in those countries which had taken the ra-
ito of Is to L. In all where the valuation
was above that ratio, us in Cuba, silyeffdis-
appeared-only the pistareen, quarter dol
lar, and its parts being seen there. Where
the value was fraction below l6, as IN
France, gold commanded a small premium;
and in England, where the ratio was lit
tie below that Of France, gold was protect