Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1878 — A NATIONAL CURRENCY. [ARTICLE]

A NATIONAL CURRENCY.

While private property can belong to no other individual than the owner, yet all private property, considered as a unit, belongs to the community in its collective capacity, to be used for maintaining its existence and for consummating measures which are essential to | its future growth, power and stability. : Should any one doubt the correctness of this assertion, let him refuse to pay taxes levied for the benefit of the State. He will then discover that Government has not only a right to seize his prop- , erty in satisfaction of the tax, but that the Government claim on his property : takes precedence of all prior claims I against it. The mere fact of Government being, authorized to levy taxes establishes its ownership in private property to the extent of the tax; an extent which may, in great emergencies, reach a third or even a half of the estimated value of the property. . The state having thus a parainorint ' ownership in all the property of its citizens, there follows the right to issue promissory notes or national currency to represent that property; and as the claim of the Government upon private property within the limits here defined takes precedence of all private owner- ■ ship in property, so also does national I currency take precedence of individual promissory notes or private currency. ■ That is to say, when Government issues national currency to represent the value of communal property, it has the right i to forbid, if necessary, the issue of individual promissory notes or private cur- I rency designed to represent the value i of the same property. This right is so palpable as to call for no discussion. . With the power to create necessarily goes the right to protect what is created. An individual issues promissory notes that represent the value of his property ; in order to exchange them for other ! property, which he sells or otherwise i disposes of, and uses the proceeds to redeem his currency, keeping the surplus, if any, or meeting a deficiency with a portion of his original property. Likewise our Government issued greenbacks or national currency, which represent the value of the communal property, in order to exchange them for labor, mental and physical, and for the products of the soil, the workshop, and the loom, all of which were consumed in preserving the life of the Ration. If Government had issued the greenbacks to another Government in payment of what it required to suppress the rebellion, it would have been i obliged to repay the Government alt | that had been received from it, and I thus pay off its promissory notes or i greenbacks, just as an honest citizen i does who has passed his notes or private \ currency to another citizen. But our j nation, instead of dealing with another | nation, dealt with itself, issued green- 1 backs to itself in exchange for goods and labor furnished by itself. Thus it came to pass that the nation in the act of issuing its currency redeemed it, and in the act of redeeming it reissued it; a reciprocal process that has continued up to the present moment. Hard-money men make it a standing reproach against the greenbacks that they can be issued in unlimited quantities after the same manner and with the same celerity a printer puts forth reams of circulars. The reproach is one born of ignorance and prejudice. Not a dollar of the national currency was put forth that the recipient of it had not to give in exchange a full equivalent either in labor or property; he could not have done more had the dollar been metal instead of paper—been gold instead of greenback. A little reflection will satisfy anyone blessed with good sense that it is not possible to issue greenbacks except in this manner, without making whoever attempts it liable to punishment, unless Congress should authorize a different course from that heretofore pursued. What amount of national currency ought to be issued to an enterprising nation ? A correct answer to this query cannot be returned without previously taking into consideration the nature of the people, and the conditions to which they are subjected by circumstances beyond their control. A nation highly civilized and occupying a comparatively small territory requires less than one equally enlightened but inhabiting a vast empire. The former depends so much upon nations of other climes for many essentials to its civilization, which insuperable obstacles prevent it from procuring at home, that it is less interested in possessing a national currency than in acquiring a large supply of such merchandise as will be acceptable abroad in exchange for products the nation cannot create out of its own resources. The kind of merchandise coveted for this purpose varies in accordance with what is most desired by the people upon whom the nation depends for supplies. But the merchandise chiefly in demand are the precious metals, gold and silver, since these are more generally acceptable abroad than any other; hence a nation situated in the manner here described naturally sets greater store upon gold and silver, keys to the treasury heaps of foreign lands, than upon a national currency which can be used only at home, where individual and corporate promissory notes perform, though inefficiently, many of its duties. It is not surprising the precious metals should eventually have come to be regarded by the most progressive and cultured European nations as the mainstay of their power, prosperity and happiness. Without gold and silver they would sink into comparative barbarians; for their territory, both by reason of its limited area and geographical position, is not capable of bringing forth more than a comparatively small number of the products which are absolutely required to meet the wants of the people. Destroy the ability to make up this deficiency from abroad, ami the people must inevitably assume a life and culture in conformity with what their country, its soil, climate, and mineral resources can sustain. . For the first time in the history of mankind, an opportunity is being given a nation (ourselves) to rear independently a civilization superior to any heretofore known. An immense empire, capable of producing, to an unlimited extent, everything to be found elsewhere in the world, has been handed over to a people superior to all others in energy, intelligence and enterprise. Such a combination of immense opportunities, with vast abilities to make the most of those opportunities, has never

heretofore fallen to the lot of our race. It only remains for us to decide whether we will manage our vast inheritance according to the maxims and precepts of those who have never had a similar experience to draw upon for our guidance, or whether we will manage it in accordance with the dictates of their own good sense, and with what is expected of all who assume to be masters of their own possessions. An ample national currency within our own undivided control, an American money belonging exclusively to ourselves, is a prime requisite for making us an independent, self-sustaining nation. If, on the contrary, we elect a merchandise that is owned and controlled almost exclusively by foreigners, to measure the value of all property created by us, then no matter what wealth of energy and enterprise we expend, or how vast the property we create, their value can never be greater than the gold that is available to measure that value; and the whole of our possessions will belong actually, if not nominally, to those who hold the gold. How much currency we need is not a question for European financiers or their agents here to answer for us; all their experience is derived from the necessities of their own “pent-up Uticas,” and is no more applicable to our case than is the experience of a kitchen gardener applicable to the management of a 50,000-acre farm. Divide up our territory into a hundred kingdoms, people these with different nations, speaking different languages, having different manners and customs, influenced by different traditions, each morbidly jealous of the others, and all obliged to keep a large supply of gold to exchange with their neighbors for other merchandise not obtainable within their own boundaries, then we will have a state of affairs analogous to what prevails among our officious foreign advisers, and be in a condition to profit by their experience and example. William Howard. Philadelphia, Pa.