Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1898-02-03


Assembly, it was decided to try the
experiment, and four hundredanil-
lions of assignats were issued. This
was thought sufficient to cover the
value of the property but in short
time another issue was called for and
three hundred millions more printed.
It was then decided that the limit of
such issues should be fixed at twelve
hundred millions. This limit, how
ever, was soon passed and sixteen
hundred millions made the ultimate
limit. This continued until the issue
became practically unlimited. The
property basis was soon ignored and
the issues based purely on credit.
1he result was the money began to
depreciate in value and trade and
industry of every kind was thoroughly
demoralized. "The evil was felt daily
and hourly in every place of business
and by every class, in the dairy and
on the threshing floor, by the anvil
and by the loom, on the billows of the
ocean and in the depths of the mine."
Month after month and year after
year the money continued to depreci-
ate but new issues went on. Itreminds
one OF the career of a man addicted to
drink. One drink calls for another
and the reaction on the system is
cured by still more liquor. The peo-
pie became intoxicated and were car
ried away by the wild ssscheme of
inconvertibility." This continued
until they had in circulation thirty six
billions Of assignats. In short time
the whole structure fell to the ground
and was followed by universal chaos
in the industrial, political and social
world. But, as usual, the effects fell
the heaviest on the laboring classes.
The results were only less disastrous
and far-reaching than the orgies of
blood and murder OF the French
Revolution which followed. When
Napoleon Bonaparte came on the
scene of action and found an immense
debt unpaid and the government bank
rupt he was asked what he intended
to do. He replied, 'I will pay cash or
pay nothing. While live willnever
resort to irredeemable paper. It has
been the scoarge of all the nations.n
COLONIAL CURRENCY.
Ipass now to the history OF finance
in our own country and shall begin
with the paper currency of the revolu-
tionary period. can do no better In
this connection than to summon to my
aid the services of one of the clearest
writer's and the most far-sighted
statesman of that or any other age,
Thomas Jefferson. In his account of
the monetary experiments of that
period he uses the following language:
Son the commencement of the late
revolution, Congress had no money.
The external commerce of the states
being suppressed the farmer could not
sell his produce and could not pay q
tax. Congress had NO resource then
but In paper money. They did not
foresee the long continuance of the
war, the almost total suppression of
tnufr uxporJs xuu urner events which
rendered the performance of their
engagement impossible. The paper
money continued for twelve-month
equal to gold and silver, but the guam
titles which they were obliged to emit
for the purpose of the war exceeded
what had been the usual quantity of
the circulating medium. 1t began,
therefore, to become cheaper, or, as
we expressed it, 1t deprecated. In
two years it had fallen to two dollars
of paper to one of silver; in three
years to four to one; in nine months
more it fell to ten to one; in the six
months following, that is to say, by
September, 1779, it had fallen to 20 to
1. By March, 1880, it had fallen
40 to 1. 1t continued to circulate
and to deprsciate until the end Of
1850, when 1t had fallen to rs to 1, and
the money circulated from the French
army being by that time sensible in all
the states north of the Potomac, the
paper ceased its circulation altogether
in those states. In Virginia and North
Carolina it continued year longer,
within which time 1t fell to 1000 to l.,
and then expired as it had done in the
other states, without single groan.
Not murmur was heard on this occa-
sion among the people on the contrary,
universal congratulations took place
| on their seeing this gigantic mass,
whose dissolution had threatened con-
vulslons which should shake their
infant Confederacy to it's center,
quietly inferred in it's grave"
GWorks of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. Nv,
page 1881
/ take it that this authority will not
be called In question; hence submit
1t without comment.
THE GREENBACKs.
This was q severe lesson to the peo-
pie of that period and one which wai
not soon forgotten. 1t impressed
itself especially upon the minds Oft
men who framed the Federal consti'
| tuition and, in fact, one of the grea
EVERY BRIDE
and wife should know about the pre-
paration that for half a century ha