The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-07-28
progress of the colonies under this sys
TEN was wonderful

progress of the colonies under this sys-
TEN was wonderful.
But English merchants. manufacture
ers and capitalists were opposed to it
because it was antagonistic to the trad
ing interest Of England, and in 1873
the British parliament destroyed the
legal tender feature of all the colonial
onies from issuing more money of that
kind.
This was the principal cause Of the
Revolutionary war.
Great Britain was whipped upon the
battlefield, but she whipped out the
American people in the national con-
vention of 1887 at Philadelphia by get
ting a provision put in the new consti-
tuition which prohibited the states from
issuing bills of credit or making any
thing tender in payment of debts but
gold and silver coin, and thus The
American people were robbed of the
fruits Of their victory upon the battle
field.
But this provision was neutralized by
the establishment of4state banks Of is
sue which furnished each state with a
large amount of local currency pur-
porting to be redeethable in coin. and
the United States supreme court sus-
authorizing the establishment of these
banks
These private state banks were al
lowed to issue three or four dollars il
bank notes for every dollar in coin they
had in their vaults, and about once il
every nine. years the confidence of The
people was exhausted and bank PAM,
would result in a general wreck of al
the banks outside of New England, an(
commercial failures fnnumerable woult
occur.
Still, upon the whole. the countr,
made wonderful progress with it's local
currency of bank notes issued under
state authority and based really upO1
nothing but confidence or suspicion
asleep.
1t was the best local currency thu
states could get under the cream
stances, and the losses the manufactur
ing states sustained when bank panic
occurred were nothing more than wha
might have been anticipated and per
haps nothing more than they deserved
But manufacturing states Away
have been and always will be opposed
to letting any agricultural state hav'
a local currency of any kind, and oil
England and New England brough
their influence to bear upon congress
during our late civil war, and got al
act passed putting tax Of ten pc
cent upon the issues of all state banks
thus taxing them out of existence. Thi
was an ingenious method of revitaliz
ing the constitutional provision whicl
had been neutralized by the establish
ment of state banks of issue.
Now there is not a dollar Of loca
| currency in America, and the South
ern and Western states are bleedin!
sacrifices to the trading interest of OIL
| England and New England.
No political evil that afflicts us cal
compare with this in magnitude.
1t means the complete destruction o
| the Federal system of government
| means that no state shall be a state il
| the true sense of the term, towit: b
| self-sufficient It means that this re
public is a consolidated nation an
| that the Northeastern section is the ma
ton And it means the reduction 9
the South and West to the condition G
Ireland and India.
| Without local currency that wi
stay at home no agricultural state ca
have permanent prosperity.
| If we had ten billion dollars in golt
silver, greenbacks or national ban
notes loaned to the, people all over til
nation on real estate security, it woul
not be long before nearly all Of
would be in the manufacturing state
of the Northwest and, the rest of tn
country would be suffering for a Gil
cul&ting medium. =,
Money that is good everywhere a
ways flows out Of agricultural int
manufacturing states. and therefore til
only adequate remedy is to do as OF
colonial ancestors did and establish
local currency of legal tender sta
treasury notes that will stay at home
Local currency of this kind stiml
lates home enterprises, encourages Il
establishment of manufactures, di
fuses wealth among the masses, ar
makes state prosperous, powerful an
independent.
money answereth all things" sa.
the scriptures, and no community {
people calling itself a state can be