New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-10-21

what was then, as now, the most cultivated,
intelligent, Law abiding portion of the coun-
try. They were probably deferred from
changing their system on seeing these evils
because of fact in the financial history of
a nation with which they were in alliance,
which is now held up by the bullionists as
conclusive argument in favor of q specie
standard, with very much less cause and
with very much less weight now than it
might we'll have had then, when our fathers
had in present contemplation the use in
revolutionary France, of the assignats and
mandats as = substitute for gold and silver
currency which almost at once became
valueless, although nOminally based upon
what is reckoned among men as the most
desirable of possessions, the lands of the
nation. These forms of security were to
the holder evidence of q right to buy or
locate upon q portion of the confiscated
lands of priests and mobiles. called the ma
tional domain.
The value of land consists of two es-
sentials-title and productiveness, and the
asslgnat made no assurance of title to the
holder. Besides it was a. land warrant and
not currency. Our currency can not be said
to have deprecated, because our land war
rants sell at half the government price Of
land.
Besides, looking back upon that time, it ia
difficult to see why the French paper money
was not then as valuable as any other
human possession in France. whe Their gold,
silver, land, limb, or life; neither was worth
an hours purchase. The legislator of to-
day was the criminal of tomorrow; the
Judge of to-day was the Iculprit of to-
morrow; the knife of the guillotine, like the
rain Of heaven, fell alike Oh the Just and the
unjust.
Canddly considered then, this period and
its system could not be pointed at as a
warning and example in finance. In 1861,
when the war hal scarcely begun, and
money was needed only to purchase sup
plies and to pay the troops; when our
money was promissOry notes of banks
based upon gold and silver which they
promised to pay on demand, and which
were claimed to be instantly convertible
INTO gold; when we had that system of
"hard money" which is held by the bullion
lists to be the most desirable; at that mo-
ment all the banks suspended payment,
thus acknowledging themselves insOlvent,
refused TO loan any money to the govern
ment, although tempted by the then enor-
nous interest of 7 3 10 per cent, and the
"hard money" and "honest money" all
became irredeemable and inconvertible
promises to pay of broken banks which
boarded their gold in their vaults or invested
1t abroad in sterling aud exchange. Thus de-
serted and betrayed by capital, the govern
ment, as its only resource for self-preserva-
tion, threw overheard the money of the
world by the act of February 25, 1862, and
issued i-s own legal tender notes as money
with which to pay its soldiers for their
lives, purchase supplies. And conduct the
war. From that hour, during the whole
war. aud until long after the str' 9Th,
power, credit and stability of the Uuited
States was assured by Lees surrender at
AppomattOx, not single dollar of gold or
silver was subscribed or paid BY any banker
or capitalist in America or Europe for a
bond of the United States. How was it in
lo6l-62! Were there not hundreds of stores
and warehouses unocoupiedl Ships were
without freights, workshops closed, and
workmen idle, and property had sunk
twenty-five per cent in value. There were
the direct conseq uences of financial sys-
tenn fraudulently based on supposed
specie into which it was promised the
"honest money" should be converted on de-
mand, although everybody knew when this
useless promise was made that there WAS
and never could be but dollar in specie to
pay five which the banks promised to pay
when they lent out their rag money at
usurious interest.
From the hour of the issue of legal ten
der notes business everywhere sprang into
active life. WOrkmen were so protitaby
occupied that large bounties we're necessary
to draw them into the army, and for ten
years there were no financial revulsions,
but a period of universal prosperity sue
ceeded. To this prosperity no check came
until administrative and legislative at
tempts were made to compel return to a
vicious system of supposed specie pay
ments and SO called "hOnest money" which
SO miserably tailed us at the first of the
war. Did not every honest man know
there never was and never will be any such
thing as specie payments Why, we have
$3.50, 100000 Of currency, for every dollar of
which the government is responsible, either
as promisUr or guarantor. Now, all au-
thorities agree that there is only about
81, 500, 600. 900 of gold in circulation in the
world. How can we get half of it here to
redeem our circulation And if we could
as We have less than 81 900, 900 in the treas
ury only unpledged to-day, less than hun
dredth part enough to redeem our circula
ton, when shall we get enough!
Cicero said that he did not see how two
Augurs could look one another in the face
when they met without laughing at their
mutual false pretenses." How can two bull
lionists say to each other, 1.-THE country
must return to specie payments," without
at least q broad grin? When at last, by the
votes of sixty-Odd bank presidents and di.
rictors in the Congress of the United States,
an act has been forced upon the country
that we shall return to specie payments on
the first day of January, 1879, apprehen-
siOns of the result of this most disastrous
measure brings about the same state of
business depression, the same stoppage in
production, the same idle ships, unfreighted
coasters, unoccuped stores. foreelosng
mortg ages and depreciating real estate that
we had in the winters of 1861 and 1862
With these things before us, would it not
seem judicial blindness not to recognize the
cause and apply the remedy! The expert
ment with the legal tender note has been
partially tried. In 1862 when greenbacks
were made fundable into fve-twenty
bond, the interest was made payable in
gold, and the major portion of the taxes
were pledged to be collected in gold
to meet that interest. The govern
ment therefore refused to receive its
o wn legal tender money in the payment of
the larger part of its demands on its own
people. In other words, at the suggestion
of the banker the government repudiated
it's own notes, in order that if he invested
in it's bonds he should be paid its interest at
six per cent in gold, although the effect of
such reputation was that the legal tender
notes were deprecated more than 100 per
cent, and with it the banker bought up the
bonds at littfe more than one-third of
their par value, and then elected himself to
Congress and voted that the bonds go pur-
chased should be paid at their par value in
gold. More than this, when he did buy the
bonds at from thirty to forty cents on the
dollar, he was permitted by the national
banking act to pledge them to the govern
ment at ninety cents on the dollar, and the
government Endorsed his notes for that
amount, and empowered him to circulate
Them as money, and at the same time paid
him six per cent interest on the face of the
bond, or sixty per cent interest on the
amount of money actually left in the treas
/, nv, hy bo ., ha maid III. 70 of bic