he Government would have been independent of all
corporations, and the same eye which rests unceasingly on the specie
currency and guards it against adulteration would also have rested on
the paper currency, to control and regulate its issues and protect it
against depreciation. The same reasons which would forbid Congress from
parting with the power over the coinage would seem to operate with
nearly equal force in regard to any substitution for the precious metals
in the form of a circulating medium. Paper when substituted for specie
constitutes a standard of value by which the operations of society are
regulated, and whatsoever causes its depreciation affects society to an
extent nearly, if not quite, equal to the adulteration of the coin. Nor
can I withhold the remark that its advantages contrasted with a bank
of the United States, apart from the fact that a bank was esteemed as
obnoxious to the public sentiment as well on the score of expediency
as of constitutionalty, appeared to me to be striking and obvious.
The relief which a bank would afford by an issue of $15,000,000 of its
notes, judging from the experience of the late United States Bank, would
not have occurred in less than fifteen years, whereas under the proposed
arrangement the relief arising from the issue of $15,000,000 of Treasury
notes would have been consummated in one year, thus furnishing in
one-fifteenth part of the time in which a bank could have accomplished
it a paper medium of exchange equal in amount to the real wants of the
country at par value with gold and silver. The saving to the Government
would have been equal to all the interest which it has had to pay on
Treasury notes of previous as well as subsequent issues, thereby
relieving the Government and at the same time affording relief to the
people. Under all the responsibilities attached to the station which
I occupy, and in redemption of a pledge given to the last Congress
at the close of its first session, I submitted the suggestion to its
consideration at two consecutive sessions. The recommendation, however,
met with no favor at its hands. While I am free to admit that the
necessities of the times have since become greatly ameliorated and that
there is good reason to hope that the country is safely and rapidly
emerging from the difficulties and embarrassments which everywhere
surrounded it in 1841, yet I can not but think that its restoration to
a sound and healthy condition would be