The southern aegis, and Harford County intelligencer. (Bel Air, Md.) 1862-1864, 1862-07-05
Our Financial Outlook.


regard to the real condition Of our fnan-
cial affairs. In the midst of the artificial
and fictitious prosperity around them, the
advance of stocks, the rise of government
securities, and the abundance of money,
they do not take time to weigh and sift
the cause they ignore the fact that is
patent to all thinking minds, that the
very cause which is now producing this
condition of affairs, is yet to spread ruin
aud desolation throughout the financial
world, and such ruin and devastation as
this world has never seen. The fumes
from the mouth of Vesuvius produce
temporary fertility in all the region round
about; but then it is only the precursor
of an eruption that sooner or later is to
Gerry havoc and destruction throughout all
the country in its vicinity.
The country is now beginning to feel
the first imitation produced by the album
dance of Government paper money now in
circulation AS this increases the infa-
ton will 60 on, the bubble will expand,
until it reaches its point of EXTREMIST
tension, when it will burst. Our sails are
spreading, and we shall be comparatively
soon, fit material for wreck in another f.
nancial tornado.
Never before in our history under the
Constitution was our financial condition
SO peculiar Pressed by the exigencies
of a civil war suddenly bursting upon us,
we have resorted to measures in glaring
violation Of every constitutional provision.
Distrust abroad drove us from the foreign
markets of the world as borrower, and
we had therefore either to borrow of our
selves, or else by Congressional action to
give power to the Secretary of the Treas
ury to create money. We tried the first
with Indifferent success; we 1eaped boldly
into the last as dernier resort, and since
that time the great paper mill establishment
at Washington has been groaning andlabor-
ing, in order to supply the ever increas-
ing wants OF an immense army, large
navy, of every department Of Government,
and of the immense horde of dependents
and hangers on that have swarmed forth,
in greater numbers from the agitations of
the country than noxious creeping things
from the fertile slime of the Nile. 1t has
met the exigency, but only as Micawber
satisfied his creditors, by giving two notes
for one. Not one dollar has yet been
paid.
So far the expenses of the war have
been carried on upon credit, and system
of government paper money inaugurated,
before which all previous systems must
'pale their Intellectual fires" In the first
place, the system inaugurated was in utter
defiance of the Constitution. The only
money recognized or sanctioned by the
Constitution was that composed of the pre-
cious metals. This principle was incor-
porated in our great national charter by the
fathers of the Republic, who were init
mately acquainted with the manifold evils
of an incontrovertible paper currency, such
as had prevailed under various forms and
names in the Colonies and Confederacy for
more than hundred years. The wisdom
of this principle had been demonstrated by
an experience which, extending through
that long period of time, had embraced
public and private, corporate and colonial,
individual as well as government bills of
credit, issued and circulated under the di-
rect or indirect sanction of the separate
Colonies OF of the Confederacy. All these
forms Of paper money had proved delusive,
unsatisfactory, and disastrous as measure
Of value. They had all been tried, and,
by common consent, we're all thown aside
in founding the Republic upon sure and
steady basis and experience has sanction
ed their wisdom.
No other money than that recognized
by the Constitution can be relied on to
preserve uniformity in the standard Of
value, and permanency in all the business
operations Of the people. The evils of an
unlimited irredeemable paper currency are
self-evident. Its increase produces an ar
ti6cial rise in prices, wild speculation,
reckless extravaganza, and when the end
comes, depression and disaster spread
havoc through all the departments Of bust
ness, and all the occupations of the peo-
pie.
/, Now the redemption of all this immense
paper issue set afoat by the Government
is actually made dependent upon the un-
eertainties Of the collection Of taxes under
an odious tax bill, and the future prosper
lily of IA termination Of war that can only
leave it in the most exhausted condition
Rather q poor basis for redemption
rather 4 strange substitute for the precious
metals. Like causes produce like effects
The present apparently prosperous con
dition in the financial world had paral