Page:Short History of Paper Money and Banking.djvu/19

Rh essay of their strength, their principles are unyielded and unyielding. They have taken deep root in the hearts of that class from which our legislators are drawn, and the sop to Cerberus, from fable has become history. Their principles take hold of the good, their pelf of the bad, and thus, those whom the Constitution has placed as guards to its portals, are sophisticated or suborned from their duties. That paper money has some advantages must be admitted: but its abuses are also inveterate; and that it, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied. Shall we ever be able to put a constitutional veto upon it?"

"In most disquisitions upon the noxious tendency of Banks," says another writer "much stress has been laid upon the injuries they have a power to inflict, by excessive loans and consequent bankruptcy, and by creating and circulating a permanent excess of currency. Could these two evils be avoided, many believe that Banks would be innoxious. I regret to differ. I am not of those who imagine that Banks incorporated with a liberal capital, will ever endanger their solvency by extending their loans; nor of those who believe that Banks controlled by specie payment, can circulate a permanent excess of paper. And yet, I think I can perceive a portentous power that they exercise over commercial enterprize. I am of opinion that they can circulate a temporary excess of paper, which, from time to time, finds a corrective, in a run upon the Banks for specie; that this temporary excess is succeeded by a temporary deficiency, one extreme invariably tending to another; that the consequences of this alternate excess and deficiency are, in the former case to impart an undue excitement, and in the latter an undue depression to commercial enterprize; that the effect of the former is to create an unnatural facility in procuring money, and to enhance unnaturally the price of commodities; while that of the latter is to produce an artificial scarcity, and to cheapen prices artificially; that the victims of these vibrations are the great body of merchants, whose capital and average deposits cannot always command discounts; that the gainers are a few intelligent and shrewd capitalists, the