Seventeen Talks on the Banking Question: Between Uncle Sam and Mr. Farmer, Mr. Banker, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Laboringman, Mr. Merchant, Mr. ManufacturerFowler, Charles N. (Charles Newell)
History
Seventeen Talks on the Banking Question: Between Uncle Sam and Mr. Farmer, Mr. Banker, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Laboringman, Mr. Merchant, Mr. Manufacturer
Fowler, Charles N. (Charles Newell)
Banks and banking -- United States; Currency question -- United States
In 1780, the United States began repudiation by issuing a new paper
dollar equal to forty of their previous issues. After their new
constitution was established, all that remained of the bills of the
Continental Congress were called in at the rate of one dollar in silver
for one hundred dollars impressed on paper.
MR. FARMER: While you gentlemen were studying Bancroft, I have been
reading Horace White upon this question of Government issues of money,
and thought I would not give myself away until after you exposed
your hands. You've piled up facts, but you've given us a very slight
impression of the effect that these money issues had, and therefore I
am going to give you the benefit of my explanation which I think throws
another and very important light upon the subject.
Mr. White refers to a pamphlet circulated in 1743, which speaks of the
Bills of Credit in New England issued on loan "to themselves, members
of the legislature and to other borrowers, their friends, at easy
and fallaceous Lays, to be repaid at very long Periods; and by their
provincial laws made a tender in all contracts, trade and business,
whereby currencies, various and illegal, have been introduced which
from their continued and depreciated nature in the course of many
years, have much oppressed widows and orphans and all other creditors."
The same writer gives special attention to the colony of Rhode Island,
which had "defrauded more in a few years than any of the most wicked
administrations in the several nations of Europe have done in several
centuries. A contract made thirty years ago for £100,000 sterling in
value is at present reduced to a nominal 32 shillings."
White says that in addition to legal tender acts there was a great
variety of laws to compel people to sell their property at the same
price for bills of credit as for silver. The debtor class was not
satisfied with forcing depreciated paper upon creditors for past
obligations, but insisted that they ought to be able to buy as much
property with the paper as with specie. Those who had been forced to
take the paper for past debts naturally joined in this demand, and the
legislatures agreed with them. Hence we find in nearly all the colonies
severe penalties on those who charged more for their goods, lands or
services in Bills of Credit than in money. In some cases the penalty
was a fine, in others imprisonment, in others confiscation of property
offered.
The usual course of events where Bills of Credit were issued was as
follows: (1) emission; (2) disappearance of specie; (3) counterfeiting;
(4) wearing out of bills; (5) calling in and replacing worn and
counterfeited issues with new ones; (6) extending the time for old
ones to run, especially those which had been placed on loan; (7)
depreciation; (8) repudiation of early issues in part and the emissions
of others called "New Tenor."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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