Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-03-08
TIpker,ps the CurreDcv.

LUIS III ShONb NtheAhueb bue Dhuk~nOte clause
of the Independent Treasury Law, as the
Democrats called IL, which was the first law
in the State that recognized bank-notes as
legal currency for State dues and payments.
That law provided that the proportion Of
bank-note payments from the Treasury
should run out in a specified time. This
amendment is to continue the paper clause
indefinitely.
The bank. note clause of the Independent
Treasury was q mockery of its pretensions
to be an imitation of the United States Sub.
Treasury system. But the Republicans
seem to desire to continue that feature, from
an affection for it for the bill passed the
Senate by nearly a party vote, the Repub-
licans supporting it. Our Republican friends
manifest in attachment for the failures and
dead issues of the past, which is more cred
table to their hearts than promising to their
continuance as a party. The people of Ohio
can have just such a currency as they de-
mand for their products and labor. They
can pay their taxes in coin; and, if the State
should refuse any other currency, that of
itself would create a demand on the part of
people for specie that would provide specie
to meet it.
The surrounding States abound in specie,
which naturally flows to that part where it
is most in ~demand-that is, where the cur
rency is nearest the cash basis. The more
the people of Ohio create and encourage
bank currency, the more will specie flow
outwardly to those financial centers where
the currency is reduced to a cash standard ;
and the nearer all bank currency is reduced
to a cash standard in this State, the more
will specie flow to it from the surrounding
States. These are axioms which no one I'M
dertakes to dispute yet we have to keep
repeating them to answer the perpetual
iteration that Ohio must expand her cur
rency with bank paper, because the surround
ing States do.
The demand for specie will bring the sup
ply. Requiring specie for all State dues,
will of itself be an important step in re
ducing the currency to a cash basis, and in
increasing the circulation of coin, and
should, by all means, be carried out. This
amendment provides that payments from
the Treasures shall be made in specie, and
notes of specie-paying banks of Ohio; say
ing nothing about the currency to be re-
ceived; but that is implied to be the same
else the Treasurers would be collectors of
specie for the benefit of the Ohio banks.
This measure seems to be a part of an eff
fort for renewal and expansion of the bank
ing system in Ohio. A bill has recently been
introduced to create a new batch of banks.
1t seems like a Rip Van Wrinkle awakening,
to see a Governor of Ohio recommending,
and members of the Legislature proposing,
to go back and repeat these exploded systems
of an Eocene period and it is an affecting
instance of faith, that members should sup
pose that any bank charter could be approved
by the popular vote in Ohio. The conviction
of the evil of bank currency was never so
strong in the people of Ohio as at this time,
and they will defeat any bank charter that
may be submitted to them, aud any party
that becomes identified with it.
The bank expansions of the surrounding
States, instead of creating any necessity for
Ohio to compete with them by expanding
her bank currency, offer her still greater ad-
vantages for restricting her paper circula-
ton. What we wan. is not competition in
the creation and encouragement of paper
currency, but a reduction of it to a cash
standard, by enforcing redemptions in specie
funds. This has already been inaugurated
to some extent in this city, with great ben
eft, and the system will naturally grow until
it becomes equal to the necessity. What
would be thought of a Wall-street fnancier
who should argue that the city of New York
must increase her bank circulation in the
same relative proportion to her business, a:
the bank circulation of the Western States
in order to hold her financial supremacy?
Yet commercial and financial editors o
long standing in this city propose the same
financial absurdity for Ohio and for this city
New York, in spite of its commercial posi-
ton, could destroy its financial supremacy
by depreciatiDg its currency to the standard
of the bank currency of the Northwest
But the disaster which it would bring upon
trade would be so vast and so concentrated
as to result in a revulsion that would de,
stroy the system at once, and restore thu
currency to its natural condition. In thu
West, however, the diversity of the Occupa
tons and productions of the people lessen
the destruction; the evils of deprecated
currency are so much diffused that they arr
not SO apparent, and the people have becomr
accustomed to a constant loss of from ont
TO ten per cent. every time the currency i
exchanged, with a periodical crisis which
leaves it entirely without bottom; just as i
is said cells will get used to being skinned.
A thorough system of r~edemptions in THU
city similar to that in New York will give
this city the same financial position in the
West that New York has in the whole
country. 1t will bring here the specie fund.-
from the surrounding States just in proper
ton as they expand their currency with bsnh
paper. To this end every thing tends tina
goes to reduce Ohio currency to q coin stand.
ard. Instead Of more banks in Ohio, we
want every inducement for the encourage.
ment and protection of the circulation Of
bank-netes taken away. And while on this
subject we will suggest to the financial
writer of the Gazette, who wonders that the
Legislature does not leave the negro ques-
ton alone, and give us a banking system
that will prevent our being flooded with for
eign bank paper, that the more banks we
have in Ohio the more of deprecated for
eign bank. notss we shall have. That is thu
first public benefit Of banks of our own.
AETI-SEoEssIoE FEELIBG IN H SOUTH-
The Nashville (Tenn.) Banner says that thu
following paragraph ia a sDecimen of tht