The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-12-10
WHAT is MONEY "A PAPER BY DR. LIEBER.


"What is Money!" was the title of
an elaborate paper read by DR.. Francis
Lieber, at the session of the Social
Monday evening. The last subjects
treated by DR.. Lieher were international
money, what is paying or promise to
pay, so-called paper money, and the
obligation of government to make
real payment even where nothing but
universally implied promise to pay ex
lists. The paper concluded as follows
1t has been my endeavor to establish
or impress anew on the minds of my
hearers the truths which are of great
and elementary Importance at all times,
but especially in our days of vaster and
intenser commerce than has existed ever
before; of increased production of gold
greater than that which took place in
the sixteenth century after the dis
covery of the gold mines in South Anne
RIGA; of frequent financial connections,
and of daily expanding and intensitying
international intercourse and inter-de-
pending science, politics, and lending
and borro owing, namely:
That men are of nature and necessity
eechaeging beings, because they are Of
nature and necessity appropriating and
producing beings, with increased va
riety and intensity of desires:
That advancing civilization develops
these characteristics with every pro-
gress mankind make-physical, mental,
moral, social and religious;
That the fundamental law of Uniform
Appetition and Diversified Faculty, in
dividual as well as territorial, OF pro-
duction and supply to satisfy the uni
form appetitlon, infallibly leads men to
exchange in wider and wider circles,
and is the permanent cause of the mar
reacting commerce.;
That the necessity of exchange leads
to the development of money;
That money is and forever must re-
main commodity, subject to all the
laws and influence which affect commo-
dities in general;
That the definition of money is -
Money is one of the most desired COM
modities. iu community, which men
are willing to receive i'll exchange for
their products, although they do not
desire it for immediate consumption,
nor perhaps for personal use at all, be-
cause each person knows that, it being
a most or the most desired commodity
becomes thus the one by which we esti-
mate all others, or the value in which
we express all other values, and which,
for the greater use and convenience of
the community, is labelled, stamped OF
coined by the government, at a later
nnrIo1 tn SaVa tho trnu Ila of ~,
ing its exact value;
That money is not, and in it's nature
cannot be, the creature Of government,
and that, on the contrary, money, like
property and the most elementary
rights, existed prior to all regular gov
ernment; -.--gs.. .s ....#
That money, like every other COM
modify and value, forms a portion of
wealth, but far from constituting the
whole wealth Of a community or Of
mankind, it forms minimum portion
of wealth; yet that all values whatever
are estimates by or expressed in that
commodity which has established itself
as money;
That this latter fact, useful and ne
cessary, has, nevertheless, led to the
Protoundest, widest spread and most
mischievOus errors;
That the existing money in a given
country is not the equivalent of all its
wealth, as Montesquieu supposed.
That nothing increases wealth but in
creased production, and that there is no
law which rules the market, domestic
and foreign, but product for product,
commerce being productive branch.
That the expectation or importation
OF money itself does not necessarily de-
crease or increase wealth; and that too
much coin produces the same incon
aenlence which is effected by too much
cutlery or coffee in a country. ...
That so-called paper money is not
money, for it is no commodity but only
promise of money.