The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1857-10-13
"a SEE FIRST PAGE. at
Suspension of Specie Payment.

Suspension of Specie Payments.
The Cincinnati papers begin to think
the suspension Of specie payments is in
evitable. When we declared weeks ago
that the sad result was unavoidable, they
then persisted in reiterating the declara-
ton there was no danger and no cause
Of alarm. The causes have been opera
ting and gathering strength in the whole
course of commerce for several years, and
their effects will be felt throughout the
commercial world. They are not to
be sought for in the fluctuations of our
metallic or banking currency, but in ex-
cessive speculations and the consequent
inflated prices of all objects Of purchase
and sale, which has in its turn led to an
expansion of commercial credit and in
debtedness, till that which supports the
chief movements of trade, and is, by a
hundred fold, more important agent Of
commerce, than money-has collapsed,
and stopped the machinery. We must
stop and repair private credit and restore
prices upon a sound and just basis be-
fore we can go on again. As the condi-
ton OF the specie and bank currency was
not the cause, tinkering with that, will
not mend the matter. The vast amount
&C ;n1abtodrocc of ra,lroodc opd Of the
West to the East was not engendered by
any change Of the character or huctua-
tons of the currency, but by an over ex
pansion Of private credit, predicated upon
false values and delusions which expand.
ing credit itself created, and which
finally dug its own pitiall. While private
credit which is the great motor Of trade
is being annihilated by the hundred
millions,-fiye, or ten, or twenty mil
lions Of coin or bank currency will moi
fill the vacuum. All the obligations ere
ated upon the fictitious values must be
adjusted, and trade must begin on the
new basis of real values before relief car
come. While houses are daily crushed
by the pressure. each one Of whom, as il
sinks, carries down more of what has
constituted commercial currency, than
the gold engulphed in the Central Amer
lea, it is folly to look to the expansion
of a few millions of bank issues fol-
g hope of relief or permanent restoration
The failure Of Chouteau-of Lucas-o
Clarkes, the bankers-or OF many Other
houses that have gone down in the gen
eral storm, have each annihilated more
mercantile currency, than all the bank;
in New York by an expansion Of thei
issues at this crisis, could supply. if they
were to fulfil their impracticable prom
Uses. Each one Of those houses, by it:
failure, struck dead as currency million
Of their own paper, and by the shock they
gave TO the credit Of others, arrested
the circulation of millions Of dollars il
the paper of others. Is it to be expected
that banks can fill these enorrLou
chasms and are they to be blamed be
cause they cannot perform the miracle
Is it not the idlest deluson to look t
them for relief when we look at the tru
causes of the trouble, and understand tn,
meaning of 'the scarcity of money"
The Cincinnati Gazette says, "tw
evils are now before the community, an
as we have heretofore remarked, one Q
the other must be accepted One is
general suspension of specie payment, an
the other "a prostratlon of mercantil
credit" The prostration of mercantil
credit has already occurred. The susper
sion of specie payment will allow ol
transactions to be settled on the basis
values in which they were incurre
which is simply measure of justice
The Cincinnati Commercial says, tho
who hoped against hope that the countl
would not be disgraced by general su
pension, now give up, and acknowled!
this to be the inevitable result" III
sooner it is adopted, the earlier will
the settlement OF old accounts,-soon
the resumption of specie payments al
the restoration of trade on new basis
values.