The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-01-23
WHEELING WEST VA WEDNESDAY MORNING. JANUARY 1867

have been heard of the complaint oil
taxes, which has now become loud and
general.
This easy and extraordinary reduce
ton of the debt, before the extraordin-
ary expenses of the war had ceased,
gave universal confidence in the ability
OF the country to pay the debt. And
this magnificent result, be it noticed,
was accomplished, not by contraction,
not by speedy specie payment, not by
Treasury operations in coin to raise the
public credit, not by anything in Mr..
MeCulloch's financial policy but by
the currency basis-by the conditions
which he assailS, and is trying to abol-
1Sh. By means of the same deprecated
currency that we borrowed and ex-
pended, we have in the first year after
the war raised 55S millions of revenue,
and paid off 2O6 millions of the public
debt. Will Mr.. McCuIloch's policy of
contracting the means of payment ever
show such a resultr
In reality this smount OF 2O6 millions
was but 1876 millions. That is, the 2O6
millions of currency that we paid was
worth but l36 millions in money. Mr..
McCulloch's policy would, in the I'll st
place, fix this nominal amount at the
same in coin, and thus add 81 per cent
to the actual debt, before beginning to
pay. This is what he proposes TO do
with the whole currency debt, if Con-
gress will second him in funding it in
gold bonds. E..
The demonstration which has estab-
lished confidence in the ability to pay
the debt, is in its ability to pay it
on the currency basis, at Its real value;
it is not in its ability TO pay it when it
has been increased 81 per cent by being
raised to the value of gold. 1t is a
demonstration of ability to pay it, not
on Mr.. McCulloch's policy, but on a
policy which he is destroying. The de-
monStration is not so pronounced that
we can safely add $50 millions to such
an enormous debt; and the Admiuistra-
ton which does it, is placing the public
credit in peril.
We are aware that it will be said that
OF this currency debt, all but $50 mill
lions, was in notes that would fall due
within two or three years, and that as
1t was impossible to pay them in that
time they must be funded, and that
they were fundable in specie bonds.
But to this it may be replied that the
continuance of the same currency con-
ditions which made an inducement to
take these currency interest notes;
could have made an inducement to
hold them, upon an arrangement to
continue the interest after maturity
and if the financial energy which is
devoted to schemes to change them
prematurely into gold bonds, were di-
rected to projects to keep them out
standing, they would be kept out until
they could be paid of: or they could
be exchanged for other short paper, re-
deemable in the same currency.
And, furthermore, if this plea were
true, it gives US reason for turning the
non-interest notes into gold bonds, and
thus contracting our means to pay the
currency interest debt before it has ma
tured, and at the same time adding 81
aTNf tn ~ a aH,f
represented by these circulating notes.
We have seen no results of great rev.
enueS, easily collected, and of great
payments on the principal of the debt,
from MIR. McCulloch's policy of con-
tracing the means of payment, and
enhancing the obligation. All of this
has been from policy which he Oppo-
ses, and is abolishing as fast as he can.
In the nature of things we shalIsnot
feel all the effects of his policy until
his contraction of currency and eXpan-
sion of debt shall be carried out.
We are throwing away policy which
has established public credit and the
worlds confidence in cur ability, for
one that has done nothing, and from
which nothing can nationally be calcu-
lated but a disaster that will overWhelm
public and private credit and the pros
perity and industry of the country in
one common ruin.
nominal and actual debt, aud of the
consequences of expanding the debt
and contracting the means to pay, upon
the basis of the coin standard; and we
have considered it only in its operation
upon the currency debt. We shall
show in another article that our curren-
cy is much more deprecated than is
shown by the premium on coin, and
that the effects of contraction and long
funding will be so much greater, and
that the enhancement OF debts will
reach much more than the public cur
rency debt.