lution might have continued, had not the crisis been
precipitated by the wild attempts of the several states to remedy the
distress of the people by legislation. That financial distress was
widespread and deep-seated was not to be denied. At the beginning of the
war the amount of accumulated capital in the country had been very
small. The great majority of the people did little more than get from
the annual yield of their farms or plantations enough to meet the
current expenses of the year. Outside of agriculture the chief resources
were the carrying trade, the exchange of commodities with England and
the West Indies, and the cod and whale fisheries; and in these
occupations many people had grown rich. The war had destroyed all these
sources of revenue. Imports and exports had alike been stopped, so that
there was a distressing scarcity of some of the commonest household
articles. The enemy's navy had kept us from the fisheries. Before the
war, the dock-yards of Nantucket were ringing with the busy sound of
adze and hammer, rope-walks covered the island, and two hundred keels
sailed yearly in quest of spermaceti. At the return of peace, the docks
were silent and grass grew in the streets. The carrying trade and the
fisheries began soon to revive, but it was some years before the old
prosperity was restored. The war had also wrought serious damage to
agriculture, and in some parts of the country the direct destruction of
property by the enemy's troops had been very great. To all these causes
of poverty there was added the hopeless confusion due to an
inconvertible paper currency. The worst feature of this financial device
is that it not only impoverishes people, but bemuddles their brains by
creating a false and fleeting show of prosperity. By violently
disturbing apparent values, it always brings on an era of wild
speculation and extravagance in living, followed by sudden collapse and
protracted suffering. In such crises the poorest people, those who earn
their bread by the sweat of their brows and have no margin of
accumulated capital, always suffer the most. Above all men, it is the
labouring man who needs sound money and steady values. We have seen all
these points amply illustrated since the War of Secession. After the War
of Independence, when the margin of accumulated capital was so much
smaller, the misery was much greater. While the paper money lasted there
was marked extravagance in living, and complaints were lo