The dollar weekly bulletin. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1862-1864, 1863-02-05
Gold and areenbaoks.


ulent individdals, TO Represent. their re-
sources by the measure of fraudulent
standard. Thus, governments represent
their resources by the estimates which their
Chief Treasury officers are made to put on
the various branches of their receipts
Banks, Insurance Companies and other corr
poratiops, initiate their resources by the arol-
trary valuation which they put ON. their
stocks and other securities held by them
Governments, Banks and other corporations
report stocks, bonds and other securities at
the bar value expressed on their face. So
the Federal government even reports its
issues of treasury notes. just as if paper
sreenback dollar was worth dollar of gold.
1t is true that, for Dtime past, greenbacks
have passed, as currency, at the nominal
value expressed on their face; and 1t is posi-
BILE they may so pass for while longer.
But this deceiVes no man Of sense; and the
whole power of the government cannot pos
sibly make sensible people accept the de-
ception for reality. The moral power oil
Federal statutes and the physical power OF
Federal bayouets, cannot make greenbacks
equal to gold The treasury notes, called
greenbacks, every one and all of them, have
two fslsehoods engraved on them-one on
the face and one on the back-that on the
| face saving the governm ent "will pay" and
that on the back declaring this promise to
paw, a illegal tender" These two ayerments
are both lies; and every man of ordinary in
teiligence and candor knows it. The gov
erument "will pay" these notes, never; and
no honest Court in christendom will ever
permit them to be pleaded as"legal tender"
Nothing but gold and silver is, or can by
any possible device of legislation, be made
illegal TENDER" either under Federal or
State authority. This has been too often
decided by our Federal and State Courts, in
times past, to be any longer question of
controversy. And that such is the set
tied conviction of the public midland
such the irreversible law of commerce-we
appeal to the prices current and the COM
mercial reports of the day. In spite Of local
statutes and military edicts. making treasury
notes current at par and infiictiDg punish
ment on all who refuse to receive them at
par, they have steadily gone down, down,
down, in price, till, within the last day or
two, they are quoted in the public COM
mercial papers, as requiring 165 cts of their
face to buy 100 cts of gold. This quotation
tells the whole story. Neither statutes nor
bayonets can depreciate the value of gold
or elevate the value of paper. Nor can
statutes or bayonets make that rea! which is
unreal. Nor can any nugatory legislation
nor any prohibitory, or denunciatory or penal
legislation, make that not to be fact which
was ever once fact.
1t is the fashion of the time, in the COM
mercial quotations, even of newspapers
which aspire to be respectable, to give the
price of gold as at SO much premium, just as
they would give the price of wheat as so
much per bushel. This is delusive. if not
deceptive and fraudulent, whether wilful OF
not, it is hard to say. When gold is quoted
at so per cent. prenriunl-or in other words
that it requires $50 of greenbacks to buy 1oo
of gold, the trne meaning of the state eut
is, not that gold, which is, and always must
be the sole standard, is really at premium
above Ihe lawful standard of money, but
that paper is SO much deprecated below
that standard. To illustrate this, we may
remark that gold, within few days past.
has been quoted at IS premium, that is, that
one dollar of gold is worth 165 of paper; and
the price of gold, as it is called, jumped up
five centr in one day. How ridiculous, to
men of sense, to talk of a standard increasing
or decreasing in value! 1t m ght as well be
said, and it might be said with equal truth,
that pound, avoirdupois, which according
to law, weighs 16 ounces, weighs but II
ounces to-day, or shall weigh 20 ounces to-
morrow. To take any other view of it
would be equivalent to the reputation o
the fixed standard and making an arbitrary
and vascillating standard the rule instead
just as if you should compel me to receive
Tomorrow a peck CT meal for what you
promised me to-day to deliver half bushel.
This whole thing is a moral fraud, and a
mockery of honest finance; and no govern
ment under heaven can survive its practice;
for the curse of heaven and earth will
punish it.
To show the real value of greenbacks,
compared with gold, We append little
table, for the convenience os those who do
not care to trouble themselves with calcula-
tons. In the first column, we give tn price
of gold per dollar in cents; in the second, ,
the relative value of paper per dollar in
cents, soma Of the fractions NOT haino exact