Flint's Letters from America, 1818-1820Flint, James, active 19th century
History
Flint's Letters from America, 1818-1820
Flint, James, active 19th century
Ohio River Valley -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
There is here much trouble with paper money. The notes current in one
part, are either refused, or taken at a large discount, in another.
Banks that were creditable a few days ago, have refused to redeem
their paper in specie, or in notes of the United States’ Bank. In
Kentucky, there are two branches of the United States’ Bank; thirteen
of the Kentucky bank, and a list of fifty independent banks, some of
which are not in operation. In the state of Ohio, there are thirty
chartered banks, and a few others which have not obtained that
pernicious distinction. In Tennessee, the number of banks, including
branches, is fourteen. The total number of these establishments in
the United States, could not, perhaps, be accurately stated on any
given day. The enumeration, like the census of population, might be
affected by births and deaths. The creation of this vast host of
fabricators, and venders of base money, must form a memorable epoch in
the history of the country.--These craftsmen have greatly increased
the money capital of the nation; and have, in a corresponding degree,
enhanced the _nominal_ value of property and labour. By lending, and
otherwise emitting, their engravings, they have contrived to mortgage
and buy much of the property of their neighbours, and to appropriate
to themselves the labour of less moneyed citizens. Proceeding in
this manner, they cannot retain specie enough to redeem their bills,
admitting the gratuitous assumption that they were once possessed of
it. They {109} seem to have calculated that the whole of their paper
would not return on them in one day. Small quantities, however, of it
have, on various occasions, been sufficient to cause them to suspend
specie payments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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