WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1838
223
of resources, to answer its demands. If the present currency is much further depreciated, it is more than probable our own citi- zens, who are creditors, will refuse to receive it in payment of their debts. The tribunals will be invoked to enforce their de- mands, and the system which makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer, will then be found in successful operation. That the increased issue proposed by the present bill, will have the effect, of depreciating, still further, the value of the paper, no reason- able mind can doubt. The Government will never be able, by all the issues it can make, to satisfy the demands of private speculation and interest. The vast issues of all the banks of the United States in their most expanded condition, failed to attain this object. The de- mands of individuals for money in that country were never more zealously and vigorously pressed, than at that period. For this Government now to attempt this object is to disregard, alike, the lessons of experience, and the dictates of common sense. The issues under the former law, have been made gradually, and sparingly, in order to make the demand for them operate most efficiently in sustaining their credit. There has not prob- ably been in general circulation at any one time, more than half a million of dollars. The present bill requires the Secretary of the Treasury to increase the issue to a million. No time or dis- cretion is allowed to that officer. The circulation of the country is to be doubled in as little time as is required to issue the paper. Those who first received the paper from the Government, may, perhaps, succeed in passing it off without loss, but who can expect that subsequent holders, the less wary and the less enterprising, will escape as well. Increased depreciation is inevitable, and the whole country is to be afflicted with all the evils of the depreciated currency for the accommodation of individuals, to the extent of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The action of Congress upon the subject, although the increased issue is comparatively small, can scarcely fail to weaken public confidence in their firm- ness, and the stability of their policy. If, in the face of former experience, and facts notorious to all, they yield to the demands made upon them by particular individual interests of the present time, ,vhat must be looked for in the future? When the treasury notes were issued, it was not designed to pay off the public creditors with them. It ·was known to all, the country was not in a condition to discharge its public debir-
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