The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1875-03-11

in the United States Senate
where from 1919 to 1861,
lie served on the finance
committee, and acquired distinction for
financial ability He views the question,
naturally enough, FROM u Virginia and a
Southern stand point and claims that the
currency system affects the South in a
manner entirely different from what 1t
does the North. He gives his reasons for
the opinion, and also why the South has
shown 50 little power Of recuPerat!oh
since the war, as follows:
Mr.. Hunter regards the destruction
of the State banks by Federal Legislation
"a II great impeachment to Southern pros
peritv. For community which mas
been exhausted and Frustrated by DIS
locatinr war. the first necessity Is ability
to command the utilized capital. Banks
create no capital, but they are indispen-
sable agencies for extending and
strengthening credit, and the national
banking law has virtually deprived the
South of this great resource by destroy
inp the State banks. Had the South
been able to substitute national banks in
their place, rs was done in the North,
the evil he holds would have been slight.
But under Il system which requires
heavy deposits OF federal bonds, the
Southern people, who were not the
owners of such bonds, were deprived OF
the ordinary facilities of credit.
"If the State banks had been permit
ted to stand. Southern recuperatlon
would not have been so fatally obstruct-
ed. Banks could have been organized
and secured on such property as the
Southern people possessed. The bonds
of their State governments, the munlci-
pal bonds of their cities and the bonds OF
the Southern railroads would have been
available for that purpose, and numerous
local banks could have made advances to
the planters on the strength OF their
growing crops and their real estate. But
the property of the planters could not
enable them 10 borrow money In distant
parts of the country, and they we're de-
prived of the great advantage OF well
ORGANIZED system of home credit. What
would have been the condition of the
North if, when the State banks were de-
stroved by Federal legislation, they had
been unable to supply their places by
other institutions?'
Regarding the losses and financial en-
barrassment incident to the abolition of
slavery, he says;
The labor once owned tor the mos'
part by the landowners of the South was
omancipatcd without compensation, and,
whether this WAS right or wrong, the
owner was forced To- meet debts contract
ed OH the faith of this property, and to
raise the money necessary to organize an
industrial system, entirely new when
capital was scarcest, and more OF it was
required for his operations than ever be-
fore. OF course the system was but parti-
ally organized, and that at deadly ex-
pense. This change may become ulti-
mately as profitable as was the old sys-
TEN, but undoubtedly in It's initiation, 1t
costs great deal more. Much of the
old system of production in the South,
once so profitable, was abandoned,
and when partially resumed, the cost was
So grrata S to leave but little profit to the
producer. The land owners made out 10
live, but did little more, instead of Great
ing large surplus, US heretofore. What
little capital once existed in that section
was almost entirely consumed.
The banks are entirely destroyed, and
the capital once held by individuals was
generally lost. The State governments
which, if directed and regulated by the
interests ofthe people, might have assisted
them much, we're placed by Federal in
teryeution under the rule Of the igno-
rant negro and corrupt carpet bagger,
and became actual nuisances and objects
of dread to the Industrious and intelli-
gent part of the community.