People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1895 — CALHOUN ON MONEY. [ARTICLE]

CALHOUN ON MONEY.

Taper (u.-rn.M in Many Respect* Suit per nr U» -Meta.L. * In view cf thq/fapt that; the money power is co co-UTating aU its energies - to secure the destruction the greenbacks, it may be well to 4 vead the following extract from a speech of John C. Calhoun cf South Carolina, delivered in t’-.e United 3tuteM«enaie during the panic of’37-38: ‘i “We are told there is no instance of a government paper that Hid not depreciate. In reply I affirm'that there is none, assuming the form that I propose, that ever did depreciate. Whenever a paper receivable in the dues of a government had anything like a fair trial it has succeeded.” ,'r “It is, then, my impression that in the present condition of the "world, a paper currency in some form is almost indispensable in financial and commercial operations of civilized am) extensive communities. In man}' respects it has a v.ast superiority over metallic currency; especially in great and extensive transactions—by its greater cheapness, lightness and the facility cf determining the amount. It may-throw some light cn this subject to state that North Carolina, just after the revolution, issued a large amount of paper. It was also made a legal tender, but which of course was not made obligatory after the adoption cf the federal constitution. A large amount—• say between $403,000 and sso3,ooo—remained in circulation after that-perlod, and continued to circulate fob more than twenty years, at par with gold and silver, with no other advantage than being received in the revenue of the state which was much less than SIOO,OOO per annum. >. “No one can doubt that the government credit is better than that' of any bank, more reliable, more safe; Why, then, should it mix ,up with the less perfect credit of these institutions? Why not use its own’ credit to the amount of its own transactions? Why should it not be safe in its own hands, shall be considered safe in tho hands of 800 private institutions, scattered all over the country, and which have no other object but their own private benefit, to increase which they extend, their business to the most dangerous extremes? And why should the community be compelled to give 6 per cent discount for the government credit, blended with that of the bank, when the superior credit of the government could be furnished separately without discount, to the mutual advantage o’ the government and the common t;. “But whatever may be the amount that can be circulated I hold it clear that to that amount it would be as staple in value as gold and silver itself, provided the government be bound to receive it exclusively with these metals in all its dues, and that it be left perfectly optional with those who have claims on the government to receive it or not.”

“We are told,” he stated later on, “the form I suggested is but a repetition of the ‘old continental money,’ a ghost that is ever conjured up by all who wish to give the banks an exclusive monopoly of government credit. There is not the least analogy between them. The one is a promise to pay when there is no revenue; and the other a promise to receive, in the dues of the government, when there is abundant revenue.”