Instead of following the old wretched way of
throwing an immense amount of stocks into market at a sacrifice of
fifteen to thirty per cent., the Government has got all the money it
wanted at half or a little more than half the usual rate of interest. It
would have been better if the currency had been made to consist wholly
of United States legal-tender notes, fundable in six per cent.,
bonds--with a proper provision for the interest and for a sinking fund.
But the financial system adopted is a matter of satisfaction, apart from
its admirable success in furnishing the Government with the means to
carry on the war: it is the inauguration of sounder principles on
currency than have heretofore prevailed, which, if unfolded and carried
legitimately out, will give the country the best currency in the
world--perfectly secured, uniform in value at every point, and liable to
no disastrous expansions and contractions. The notion that any great
industrial, manufacturing, and commercial nation can conduct its
business--any more than it can carry on a great war--with a specie
currency alone, is indeed exploded; but the notion that a paper currency
to be safe must be based on specie, still prevails--although the
currency furnished by the thousands of banks scattered throughout the
country has never been really based upon the actual possession of specie
to the extent of more than _one fifth_ of the amount in circulation.
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