Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/499

Rh no means pleasant to them. Deprive them of that benefit and most, if not all, of the 2400 national banks now in existence will withdraw from the National system and become State banks again. You cannot eat your cake and keep it too. But there are still other reasons why the withdrawal of the national-bank currency and the substitution therefor of greenbacks appear to me highly detrimental to the public interest. I will not go into a discussion of the question whether new issues of greenbacks, a Government paper-money, in times of peace, would be Constitutional or not. I am strongly of the opinion that they would not be Constitutional. But, leaving that aside, even if the Constitution did not stand in the way, the following points are of decisive importance:

First. The substitution of greenbacks for national-bank notes, as I have already shown, would make the resumption of specie payments impossible, not only at present, but for an indefinite time. It would launch us out again upon the sea of irredeemable paper-money, without rudder and compass.

Second. Our national-bank currency possesses a quality very important to the business of the country, which the Government paper-currency does not possess. It is the quality of elasticity. Have you not all been demanding a currency elastic in volume? Well, the bank currency is. The Government paper is not. The volume of bank currency, under a well-regulated system, is determined by the requirements of the business of the country. When more is needed it will become profitable to issue more, and it will be issued. When less is needed, the excess flows back to the banks and withdraws. It is a self-adjusting process. The volume of Government paper-currency is fixed by law, and that law is made by politicians. Whatever the changing needs of business may be, that volume of the Government paper-currency remains