EXTRACTS FROM THE "THIRTY YEARS VIEW"

OF HON. THOMAS H. BENTON,

[VOL. I, CHAPTER CV, PAGE 436, 1834.]

REVIVAL OF THE GOLD CURRENCY.

MR. BENTON'S SPEECH.

"Mr. BENTON said it was now six years since he had begun to oppose the renewal of the charter of this bank, but he had not, until the present moment, found a suitable occasion for showing the people the kind of currency which they were entitled to possess, and probably would possess, on the dissolution of the Bank of the United States.

This was a view of the subject which many wished to see, and which he felt bound to give; and which he should proceed to present with all the brevity and perspicuity of which he was master..

I. In the first place, he was one of those who believed that the Government of the United States was intended to be a hard money Government; that it was the intention, and the declaration of the Constitution of the United States, that the Federal currency should consist of Gold and Silver; and that there is no power in Congress to issue, or to authorize any company of individuals to issue, any species of Federal paper currency whatsoever.

Every clause in the Constitution, said Mr. B., which bears upon the subject of money-every early statute of Congress which interprets the meaning of these clauses-and every historic recollection which refers to them, go hand in hand, in giving to that instrument the meaning which this proposition ascribes to it.

The power granted to Congress to coin money is an authority to stamp metallic money, and is not an authority for emitting slips of paper containing promises to pay money.

The authority granted to Congress to regulate the value of coin is an authority to regulate the value of the metallic money, not of paper.

The prohibition upon the States against making anything but Gold and Silver a legal tender, is a moral prohibition, founded in virtue and honesty, and is just as binding upon the Federal Government as upon the State Governments; and that without a written prohibition; for the difference in the nature of the two Governments is such, that the States may do all things which they are not forbid to do; and the Federal Government can do nothing which it is not authorized by the constitution to do.

The power to punish the crime of counterfeiting is limited to the current coin of the United States, and to the securities of the United States; and cannot be extended to the offence of forging paper money, but by that unjustifiable power of construction which founds an implication upon an implication, and hangs one implied power upon another.

The word currency is not in the constitution, nor any word which can be made to cover a circulation of bank notes.

Gold and Silver is the only thing recognized for money. It is the money and the only money, of the constitution; and every historic recollection, as well as every phrase in the constitution, and every early statute on the subject of money, confirms that idea.

People were sick of paper money about the time that this constitution was formed.

The Congress of the confederation, in the time of the Revolution, had issued a currency of paper money.

It had run the full career of that currency. The wreck of two hundred millions of paper dollars lay upon the land. The framers of that constitution worked in the midst of that wreck.

They saw the havoc which paper money had made upon the fortunes of individuals, and the morals of the public.

They determined to have no more Federal paper money.

They created a hard money Government; they intended the new Gorernment to recognize nothing for money but Gold and Silver; and every word admitted into the constitution, upon the subject of money, defines and establishes that sacred intention.

Legislative enactment, continued Mr. B., came quickly to the aid of constitutional intention and historic recollection. The fifth statute passed at the first session of the first Congress that ever sat upon the present constitution, was full and explicit on this head.

It defined the kind of money which the Federal Treasury should receive.

The enactments of the statute are remarkable for their brevity and comprehension, as well as for their clear intrepretation of the constitution; and deserved to be repeated and remembered. They are: That the fees and duties payable to the Federal Government shall be received in Gold and Silver coin only; The Gold coins of France, Spain, Por

tugal, and England, and all other gold coins of equal fineness, at eightynine cents for every pennyweight; the Mexican dollar at one hundred cents; the crown of France at one hundred and eleven cents; and all other Silver coins of equal fineness, at one hundred and eleven cents per ounce..

This statute was passed the 30th day of July, 1789-just one month after Congress had commenced the work of legislation.

It shows the sense of the Congress composed of the men, in great part, who had framed the constitution, and who, by using the word only, clearly expressed their intention that Gold and Silver alone was to constitute the currency of the new Government.

In support of this construction of the constitution, Mr. B., referred to the phrase so often used by our most aged and eminent statesmen, that this was intended to be a hard money Government.

Yes, said Mr. B., the framers of the constitution were hard money men; but the chief expounder and executor of that constitution was not a hard money man, but a paper system man! a man devoted to the paper system of England, with all the firmness of conviction, and all the fervor of enthusiasm.

God forbid, said Mr. B., that I should do injustice to Gen. Hamiltonthat I should say, or insinuate, aught to derogate from the just fame of that Great man!

He has many titles to the gratitude and admiration of his countrymen, and the heart could not be American which could dishonor or disparage his memory.

But his ideas of Government did not receive the sanction of general approbation; and of all his political tenets, his attachment to the proper system was most strongly opposed at the time, and has produced the most lasting and deplorable results upon the country.

In the year 1791, this great man, then Secretary of the Treasury brought forward his celebrated plan for the support of public creditthat plan which unfolded the entire scheme of the paper system and immediately developed the great political line between the Federalists and the Republicans.

The establishment of a national bank was the leading and predominant feature of that plan; and the original report of the Secretary, in favor of establishing the bank, contained this fatal and deplorable recommendation:

"The bills and notes of the bank, originally made payable, or which shall have become payable, on demand, in gold and silver coin, shall be receivable in all payments to the United States."

This fatal recommendation became a clause in the charter of the bank. It was transferred from the report of the Secretary to the pages of the statute book; and from that moment the moneyed character of the Federal Government stood changed and reversed.

Federal bank notes took the place of hard money; and the whole

edifice of the new government slid, at once, from the solid rock of Gold and Silver money, on which its framers had placed it, into the troubled, and tempestuous ocean of a paper currency.

[From page 443.]

Mr. B. said this was not the time to discuss the relative value of gold and silver, nor to urge the particular proportion which ought to be es tablished between them. That would be the proper work of a committee. At present it might be sufficient, and not irrelevant, to say that this question was one of commerce-that it was purely and simply a mercantile problem-as much so as an acquisition of any ordinary merchandise from foreign countries could be. Gold goes where it finds its value, and that value is what the laws of great nations give it. In Mexico and South America-the countries which produce gold, and from which the United States must derive their chief supply—the value of gold is 16 to 1 over silver; in the island of Cuba it is 17 to 1; in Spain and Portugal it is 16 to 1; in the West Indies, generally, it is the same. It is not to be supposed that gold will come from these countries to the United States, if the importer is to lose one dollar in every sixteen that he brings; or that our own gold will remain with us, when an exporter can gain a dollar upon every fifteen that he carries out. Such results would be contrary to the laws of trade; and therefore we must place the same value upon gold that other nations do, if we wish to gain any part of theirs, or to regain any part of our own. Mr. B. said that the case of England and France was no exception to this rule. They rated gold at something less than 16 to 1, and still retained gold in circulation; but it was retained by force of peculiar laws and advantages which do not prevail in the United States. In England the circulation of gold was aided and protected by four subsidiary laws, neither of which exist here; one which prevented silver from being a tender for more than forty shillings; another which required the Bank of England to pay all its notes in gold; a third which suppressed the small note circulation; a fourth which alloyed their silver nine per cent. below the relative value of gold. In France the relative proportion of the two metals was also below what it was in Spain, Portugal, Mexico and South America, and still a plentiful supply of gold remained in circulation; but this result was aided by two peculiar causes; first, the total absence of a paper currency; secondly, the proximity of Spain, and the inferiority of Spanish manufactures, which gave to France a ready and a near market for the sale of her fine fabrics, which were paid for in the gold of the New World. In the United States, gold would have none of these subsidiary helps; on the contrary it would have to contend with a paper currency, and would have to be obtained, the product of our own mines excepted, from Mexico and South America, where it is rated as sixteen to one for silver.

All these circumstances, and many others, would have to be taken into