The daily Evansville journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1862-1863, 1862-12-09
From the Philadelphia Inqpirer.l
How Thomas Jefferson FOreShadOWed
the Financial Policy for 1852.

Government, which summed up the pres
ent issue about as follows:-The ques-
ton forced upon the Government is,
whether it will make long loans for large
sums, at high rates of interest, or whether,
by exercising its right of sovereignty
and taking exclusive possession of the
paper circulation Of the country, it will
make short loans for optional sums,
without paying any interest at all. This
latter it can do by the issue of its own
notes, and by causing the withdrawal of
the competing circulation of the banks,
such withdrawal to be effected by taxa
ton, or any other Legislative device.
Such plan was suggested by the Secre-
tary of the Treasury in his last Annual
Report, and in concluding our observa-
tions upon the above issue, and the re-
concentrations of that Report, we re-
marked that the proposed measure did
not rest upon any new theories, but upon
principles which had the sanction of
jefferson, Gallatin and Benton 1t is
to make the latter assertion good, at
least with reference to one of these
names, that we recur to the subject this
morning.
In October, 1850, Mr. Jefferson wrote
to Mr.. Gallatin his belief that this coun-
try could be carried through the longest
war, against her most powerful enemy,
without ever knowing the want of dol
lar, without dependence on the traitor
Gus class of her citizens, without bearing
hard on the resources of the people, or
loading the public with an indefinite
burden of debt This he said could be
done "by the total prohibition of pri-
vate paper, by reasonable taxes in war,
and by the necessary emissions of pub
lie paper, of circulating size, bottomed
on special taxes.
But these opinions of Jefferson, writ
ten to Mr.. Gallatin when the war was
over, were no mere afterthoughts of that
sagacious and far-sighted statesman.
Repeatedly, while the war was in prog
ress, he communicated to public and pri-
vate correspondents the same views as
to the true financial policy of the Gov
ernment. Thus in June and September,
1913, he wrote to John w. Eppes series
of letters on the finances, copies of which
were subsequently communicated to the
President and Mr. Monroe In these he
used the following remarkable language
"The question will be asked and ought
to be looked to, what is to be the re-
source if loans cannot be obtained
There is but one. Bank paper must be
suppressed, and the circulating medium
must be restored to the nation to UhOn
it belongs 1t is the only fund on which
they can rely for loans; it is the only re
source which can neUer fell them, and il
is an abundant one for every necessary
purpose. Let banks continue if they
please, but let them discount for casl
alone, or for Treasury notes. -
The last quoted passage was writer
| September, 1878; but Mr.. Jefferson hat
| written to the same effect to the same
| gentleman in the previous June, during
| the first year of the war. In September
1914, he wrote to Thomas Cooper, Esq.
of the eagerness with which everybody
would receive Treasury notes, if founded
on specific taxes; adding, that "Con
gresS may now borrow of the public, ant
without interest, all the money they MAJ
want, to the amount Of competent cir
culation, by merely issuing their owl
promissory notes of proper denomina
tions," etc. What was Jefferson's ide;
of competent circulation in 1914, ma,
be found in his letter to the President
dated October llth of that year, in which
he sets it down at three hundred millions
While enforcing his views upon the Pres
ident, he repeats that " the circulatin!
fund is the only one we can ever com
n,and ,rith certainty 1t is sufficient fo
all our wants; and the impossibility o
ever defending the country without it
aid as borrowing fund, renders it in
dispensable that the nation should TAX,
it and keep it in their own hands, a
their exclusive resource.
One more extract will complete til,
series necessary to the illustration of thi
branch of the subject. In the letter Il
Mr.. Eppes, dated June oath, 1913, al
ready referred to, Jefferson wrote as fol
lows: In this way / am not withou
hope that this great, this sole resourc
"for loans in an agricultural country
Knight get be recovered for the use 0
"the nation during ,0ar; and if obtaine
ain perpetuHn1, it would always be suff
"cient to carry us through any war; pre-
"vided, that in the interval between wa
"and war all the outstanding pape
"should be called in, coin be permitte,
"to flow in again, and to hold the field {
" circulation, until another Uar shoul
"require ats yielding place again to I'll
national medium"
| At this point we find ourselves az
preaching the usual limit of newspape
article, without having used one-half tn
passages in Jefferson's correspondent
marked for illustration or this interes
ing and important subject. Pages o
: pages to the same effect might be quote
from his letters written during, and fe
years subsequent to the war of lS1:
The foregoing however should suffic
They all show the strong conviction
Mr.. Jefferson that the circulating med
um of the country should be in posse
! sion Of the Government and under i
exclusive control; that during war it wi
the sole, reliable and certain resource fc
D loans; that it was an ample fund whiC
! could be used without interest; that
was the rightful franchise of the natio