_Currency_ is only a _form_ of money, the same as _gold_ is only a form of wealth; and in the same manner that gold is wealth, is currency money. Money being the principle of representation in exchange, everything of which use is made to facilitate exchange in the form of representative value is money. Anything which can be transferred from one party to another, anything that is negotiable which is not actual value of itself, is money. This includes not only all currency, bank notes, but also bills of exchange, the ledger and bonds. These are _all_ representatives of wealth, _all_ demands for payment at a future time of a certain specified sum, and consequently are money. It is quite evident that, with the terms _wealth_ and _money_, we have all the necessary distinctions which should enter into the abstract question of finance. All other terms are but names for separate kinds or forms of these terms, to be made use of when they respectively arise in making exchanges. Now, every one must at once concede that that which best represents all of the products of labor will also best _exchange_ them, and is therefore the _best_ money. It is _equally clear_ that gold in _no way_ represents _any_ labor but that which produces it. If gold were a true representative of the results of _all_ other labor, except that which produces it, would it not also be apparent that _such_ labor must be _equal_ to _all_ other labor. Were gold a thousand times more valuable than it is held to be, it would not _even then_ be able to represent all other values. Therefore, gold is a _false_ standard of value, a _false_ representative of wealth. Many people think and speak as if gold would be of no use to this country if it were to come into disuse as _money_; that we should entirely lose it as _wealth_; the very reverse is really true, since we should have just the same quantity of gold that we _now_ have, to be used for the _same_ purposes for which it is now required, to wit: to export to other countries in exchange for imports. Suppose our imports to amount to a thousand millions dollars per annum, and that we export cotton, corn and pork to that amount, what use would we have for gold except to loan other countries, and could we not _loan_ it as _gold_, taking their representatives of value for it equally as well as though it were coined into money, having the seal and stamp of the government? It is well known that we do not export gold to Europe as so many American dollars, but as so much gold, by weight of a certain degree of fineness, the stamp of the government attesting to that degree. Again: Suppose that we had no cotton, corn or pork to give in exchange for our imports, and that we produced a thousand millions dollars’ worth of gold per annum, should we not be _equally_ well conditioned to trade with Europe?