The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1869-12-02

one sheet of paper may be maze more valua
BILE than five hundred ponds Of gold, BY be-
ing made, by the sovereign power, lien, OF
NOR tgage, on all the property Of the country
We will next enquire how, and by wha'
authority, money is made the. representative
of property. :,
The Constitution of the United States de
clares that Congress shall have power to colt
money and regulate the value thereof; it also
declares that no State shall make anything
but gold and silver legal tender, leaving
Congress free to determine what materia
shall be used, and what kind of money shall
be legal tender. Hence, it is clear that
Congress has absolute and exclusive power te
make or coin money and to regulate the val
ne thereof
Having shown what money is, and what il
is used for, and that Congress has absolute
and exclusive power to make money in the
United States, the next question to be con
sidered is. what material shall be used.
All will admit that the material that would
best answer all the purposes for which money
is made should be adopted, if it could be pro-
cured at reasonable cost, and in sufficient
quantities. IF it were conceded that gold
would be the BEST if it could be obtained, it
is sufficient to say that the United States
Government has never possessed, and has
never been able to obtain gold enough to
meet the necessities of the country for money !;
and, for that reason, paper representatives of
money founded on merely fictitious specie
basis, have always been resortcd to, in one
form or another, to meet the ordinary and ex-
traordinary wants Of the country. Paper
representatives of money enabled the colo
MES to achieve their independence; paper rep
resentatives of money have sustained the ag
ricultural interests of the country from the
commencement of the revolutionary war till
the present hour and paper representatives
press the late rebellion.
But, say the advocates of gold currency,
paper money is not sound, its value is uncer-
tain and fuctuating and they point to the
Continental and Confederate money, and the
thousands of banks that have sw;ndIed the
people by flooding the country with their ir-
redeemable promises to pay money.
There is popular error in regard to what
is called money, and all we have to do to re.
flute the argument against paper money, is to
correct the mistake. 80
I. All the issues Of banks and Government
officials that have been used as substitutes for
money, have on their face, only purportcd to
be promises to pay money. By common con-
sent they have been made current, and they
have failed, because they were false certi6
Gates Of heaps of gold which the credulous
holders have never been able to find
The greenbacks of the present day have
more Of the semblancc Of money than any
paper currency we have ever had in this
country; but they are deprecated by the law
of their being; they are refused by the pow
er that made them and put them in circula-
tion; and they are further deprecated by the
fact that they are issued as false certificates,
or representatives Of gold coin which every
body knows has no existence; and whether
it ever will have an existence or not is mat
ter Of speculation and that accounts for the
gold room and all its mysteries, and all its
mischievous influences upon the money mar
ket, and consequently upon the general bust
ness of the country.
The truth is, we have never had one dol
lar Of paper money in the United States
All the financial revulsions, all the corrupt
issues Of paper promises, in the form of bank
notes, are chargeable to the false theory of
nominal gold basis for paper currency,
Congress having the absolute and exclu-
sive power to make money, it is its duty to
make it sound and uniform; it should be
true and certain representative of value at
all times. and in all parts of the country, and
there should be enough made, to furnish each
person with sufficient amount to transact
the business of the country.
England has about twenty FIVE dollars, and
France about thirty-fve dollars of currency
for each person; and for the sake of argu-
ment we will assume that thirty dollars for
each person in the United States would not
be too much. Estimating the present popu-
lation at forty millions, we would require
twelve hundred millions of currency. To
furnish that amount in gold is impossible. -
We have now about seven hundred million of
currency, and there is ageneral demand for
more. TO contract the currency to the ca
pacity of the banks, and the Government to
pay in specie, would bankrupt the country.
To initiate the currency upon the present
monetary system would still further unsettle
go. uC piCSAosO sAC SiCCuDdCA pIULlSGS 10
pay. To resume specie payment would first
contract the currency and soon result in an
other suspension.
The question is now pressing upon u.s. and
must soon be answered: What shall we do to
be saved from general bankruptcy, individu-
al and national?
The remedy must be sought in thorough
change in our monetary system. Congress,
possessing "the power to coin money and to
regulate the value thereof can coin twelve
hundred millions Of paper money (more or,
less) and place the same in the Treasury of
the United States, to be appropriated, first,
to the payment Of all the greenback curren-
cy, and secondly to the payment of the in
terest bearing bonds, according to the let
ter and spirit Of the contract. as the demand
for the currency shall increase.
To meet the gold obligations of the Gov
ernment, the Secretary of the Treasury could
purchase the amount required from time to
time. and pay for the same in paper coinage,
instead of purchasing with nterest-bearing
bonds. The paper money being the exclu
sive currency, gold would be placed on an
equal footing with other commercial commod
tiles, and could be purchased by the Gov
crnnent, and by individuals, at its market
value, as it is now purchased. An ounce of
gold is now worth - dollars in grecnbacks,
which are only promises to pay and are not a
legal tender for public dues and it is not
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