Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1869-02-18

debts. Such paper money has ex-
ercised a, powerful influence in an
cient as well as modern history. It
saved Rome in her fierce conflict
with Hannibal. 1t enabled Great
Britain to maintain her wars against
Napoleon. Without paper money,
and, as l believe, without making 1t
legal tender, we could not have
mustered and maintained our i'm
mense armies during the recent war.
Gold was banished by the war. The
quantity was too small for the vast
expenditure required by the war
We had then no legal paper repre-
sentative of value. The State bank
notes were wisely excluded from
national circulation. We then
cautiously issued our legal tender
notes, carefully limiting their
amount, and only increasing the
amount when we could not borrow
them back at a reasonable rate of
interest. We called them lawful
money, and as measure of the
highest necessity compelled our
citizens to receive them as such, but
after all they were only a forced
substitute for money, the promise to
pay money, and not real money.
Though they were made the legal
standard of value their own value
was daily fixed in gold in the open
market in New York. We watched
their depreciation as the dark days
of the war came on, and tried TO ar
rest it. We utterly failed. The
effort was patriotic, but it. was i'm
possible. England did the same
in her wars. She passed laws for
bidding the purchase and sale or
expectation of gold, but, like ours.
her efforts were abortive. / am not
ashamed to confess my part in all
the efforts made during the war to
maintain our paper money as the
true standard of value, and I con-
fess it was impossible. Every in
telligent business man watched daily
the gold barometer, which with
unerring certainty fixed the value
of our greenbacks, of our public
credit and bonds, as it did the value
of our cotton and corn.
A distinction between the standard
of value and the actual agent OF
exchange must always be kept in
view. One must be gold, and the
other ought to be paper money con
vertible into gold. .' .'.''
Such paper currency, with proper
measures to meet panics or extreme
drains Of specie, is proven by al
experience to be the best possible
currency that has yet been devised
by man. An unmixed coin cur
rency cannot exist in commercial
country, for necessity will compel
merchants will devise, and the peo
pie will use some representative O
money whether it be bankers bill:
Of exchange, certificate of deposit
or bank or Government pape
money And one unbending, unre
laxing rule that compels payment il
coin at all times, during panics
distress, or war, as well as in peace
will periodically produce disaste
and bankruptcy. The requisites o
a good currency are
l. That it be paper currency
! 2. That it be amply secured
either by the credit of a nation O.
by unquestioned collaterals.
3. That except in extreme case
of panic it be convertible int
coin. t-i-.
4. That provisions be made fe
a suspension of the right to demand
} coin during such panics.
And the only legislative question
that can arise on these points ar
whether the paper money should b
issued by the nation or by corpora
J tors, and what relief shall be pro
vided in case ola necessary suspen
sion Of specie payments AS to tb
) first question, both England and tn
United States have settled upon
, bank currency secured by the pub
!. lie credit. AS to the second, the
J have tried various devises, as th
, raising of the rate Of interest,
temporary suspension of payments
, making the paper a legal tender
: but all these expedients are merei
; temporary to bridge over war,
f panic, period Of starvation, or 3
! unnatural adverse balance of trade
They are remidies in sickness to b
r discarded the moment that healt
5 comes again. Whatever theorist
: may suggest, however sugar coate
j the remedy may be, there is but on
2 test Of a healthy paper currency
5 and that is its convertibility int
2 gold coin. }#' - |
' If, then, gold only is the tru
standard of money, why shall W
not commence our financial meas
E ures by restoring it to it's place as
} legal tender of money? Why nc
: allow our citizens to base thei
) future contracts on gold? VIII
: not enforce these contracts in th
t courts as legal and valid? Ther
4 are difficulties in applying a ne
S standard to existing contracts mad
D upon different standard; but thi
difficulty does not apply to futur
t contracts. We wish to restor
specie payments, and yet we forbi
/ all men from dealing in specie
S Such contracts are put upon tn
Y same legal footing as gaming cor
Y tracts 1t would seem that if W
: are at all slncere in wishing speci
e payments we Should not only pre-
n mote specie contracts, but shoul
f encourage them. d. 7's} -.1a#. Fl
8 Contracts, to vast amount, al
d 60 -, =, \ - + !,