f those he collects; the
debtor by either parting with more of his property to pay his debts
than he received in contracting them, or by entirely breaking up his
business, and thereby being thrown upon the world in idleness.

The general distress thus created will, to be sure, be temporary,
because, whatever change may occur in the quantity of money in any
community, time will adjust the derangement produced; but while that
adjustment is progressing, all suffer more or less, and very many lose
everything that renders life desirable. Why, then, shall we suffer a
severe difficulty, even though it be but temporary, unless we receive
some equivalent for it?

What I have been saying as to the effect produced by a reduction of the
quantity of money relates to the whole country. I now propose to
show that it would produce a peculiar and permanent hardship upon the
citizens of those States and Territories in which the public lands lie.
The land-offices in those States and Territories, as all know, form the
great gulf by which all, or nearly all, the money in them is swallowed
up. When the quantity of money shall be reduced, and consequently
everything under individual control brought down in proportion, the
price of those lands, being fixed by law, will remain as now. Of
necessity it will follow that the produce or labor that now raises money
sufficient to purchase eighty acres will then raise but sufficient
to purchase forty, or perhaps not that much; and this difficulty and
hardship will last as long, in some degree, as any portion of these
lands shall remain undisposed of. Knowing, as I well do, the difficulty
that poor people now encounter in procuring homes, I hesitate not to say
that when the price of the public lands shall be doubled or trebled, or,
which is the same thing, produce and labor cut down to one half or one
third of their present prices, it will be little less than impossible
for them to procure those homes at all....

Well, then, what did become of him? (Postmaster General Barry) Why, the
President immediately expressed his high disapprobation of his almost
unequaled incapacity and corruption by appointing him to a foreign
mission, with a salary and outfit of $18,000 a year! The party now
attempt to throw Barry off, and to avoid the responsibility of his sins.
Did not the President indorse those sins when, on the very heel of
their commission, he appointed their author to the very highest and most
honorab