Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/508

488 here, because we shall raise revenue enough for that purpose. The other is by the purchase of bonds of the United States in the market. That will necessarily have to be resorted to. What, then, will the Treasury do? The Treasury goes to buy bonds where bonds are sold; that is to say, the Treasury goes to Wall street. It carries this additional issue of currency there, and there with it buys its bonds. What is the consequence? The additional amount of currency is thrown at once into the very hot-bed of speculation. What will be the first effect? As soon as speculation is revived, to float speculative enterprise such as concentrates there; and if you want to have a proof of the fact that currency so issued will stay in the East, that proof is furnished by the figures which I read to the Senate only a few minutes ago, showing that the banks of only three cities—New York, Boston and Philadelphia—had absorbed the whole of the new issue, of $25,000,000, with the exception of less than two millions.

Now, sir, how will North Carolina, how will any other Southern State, be benefited by an operation like this? North Carolina will not get any share of the additional currency for nothing. North Carolina will have to buy that additional currency by offering her products in the market where that currency is distributed, just as North Carolina has to do now. She will have to buy that currency, just as she would have to buy it if it were not paper but gold. If the products of North Carolina are in demand, they will be bought, and currency will go to North Carolina in payment thereof as it does now, and only to that extent; no more. But the additional amount issued by the Government being right in the hot-bed of speculation, and having greatly stimulated that speculation, the rule governing the diffusion of currency will be just the reverse of what