Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850Benton, Thomas Hart
History
Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850
Benton, Thomas Hart
United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861
The bill is to divorce the government from the banks, or rather is
to declare the divorce, for the separation has already taken place
by the operation of law and by the delinquency of the banks. The
bill is to declare the divorce; the amendment is to exclude their
notes from revenue payments, not all at once, but gradually, and
to be accomplished by the 1st day of January, 1841. Until then
the notes of specie-paying banks may be received, diminishing
one-fourth annually; and after that day, all payments to and from
the federal government are to be made in hard money. Until that
day, payments from the United States will be governed by existing
laws. The amendment does not affect the Post Office department
until January, 1841; until then, the fiscal operations of that
Department remain under the present laws; after that day they fall
under the principle of the bill, and all payments to and from that
department will be made in hard money. The effect of the whole
amendment will be to restore the currency of the constitution to the
federal government--to re-establish the great acts of 1789 and of
1800--declaring that the revenues should be collected in gold and
silver coin only; those early statutes which were enacted by the
hard money men who made the constitution, who had seen and felt the
evils of that paper money, and intended to guard against these evils
in future by creating, not a paper, but a hard-money government.
I am for this restoration. I am for restoring to the federal
treasury the currency of the constitution. I am for carrying back
this government to the solidity projected by its founders. This
is a great object in itself--a reform of the first magnitude--a
reformation with healing on its wings, bringing safety to the
government and blessings to the people. The currency is a thing
which reaches every individual, and every institution. From the
government to the washer-woman, all are reached by it, and all
concerned in it; and, what seems parodoxical, all are concerned to
the same degree; for all are concerned to the whole extent of their
property and dealings; and all is all, whether it be much or little.
The government with its many ten millions of revenue, suffers no
more in proportion than the humble and meritorious laborer who works
from sun to sun for the shillings which give food and raiment to
his family. The federal government has deteriorated the currency,
and carried mischief to the whole community, and lost its own
revenues, and subjected itself to be trampled upon by corporations,
by departing from the constitution, and converting this government
from a hard-money to a paper money government. The object of the
amendment and the bill is to reform these abuses, and it is a reform
worthy to be called a reformation--worthy to engage the labor of
patriots--worthy to unite the exertions of different parties--worthy
to fix the attention of the age--worthy to excite the hopes of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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