al result or climax. This is
depreciation in relation to specie, because of the demand for that
article, first for exportation, and then for security; and, at the same
time, appreciation in relation to every other article of merchandise,
because of the reduction of its own quantity, necessary to the
restoration of the lost equilibrium,--necessary to the reestablishment
of its essential element, credit. Thus it appears that the results of a
bank-note currency are similar to those of a specie-currency, but as
much more disastrous as its expansions and contractions are greater and
more sudden.

To avoid these disasters, it is proposed to issue a national currency
that is constant, and that is therefore a standard measure of value,--an
instrumentality that commerce has never yet been furnished with, though
it is the only one capable of affording to the industry of the country
proper, that is, invariable, encouragement. Not being empirical, it will
make no pretence of furnishing the precious metals at less than the
market-rate, either for exportation or hoarding; but it will have the
effect of reducing them to their true position, that of merchandise, so
that they may be exchanged for the products of other countries with
profit. For the same reason it will not be redeemable. To redeem a
currency is to replace it by another. What other? Specie? That is out of
the question. However desirable specie may be as wealth, as a currency,
except for change, it is a nuisance. Accordingly, merchants prefer a
representative currency, even though its representative character be
somewhat problematical. And government failing to supply a better, this
becomes the currency of the country by a species of necessity. In short,
because of its inconveniences and risks, specie is not used as a
currency, and will not be, because, in addition to these obstacles, the
representative currency in use, being without proper regulation, has
increased to such an extent that there is not sufficient coin to replace
it,--a fact that practically settles in the negative the question of the
sufficiency of the precious metals for currency, in addition to their
other use, in a country where civilization has established credit as a
means of trade. Nevertheless, a specie-currency is advocated even by
those who carefully avoid handling it, and who would be the last to
consent to such a reduction of the currency as its exclusive use would
require,--a confusion of mind d