They can have no stronger written guarantees than those of the Constitution which protected African Slavery, which was protected by the British Government from 1680, and afterwards by the Constitution, and recognized by all the judicial authority of the land. And slavery has been abolished. The security of the bonds is no greater. The private interests of the people are the only indemnity in popular governments for the enforcement of claims of any character which must be adjudicated before courts. This must, of necessity, be true; for our highest courts, in any question of government, is simply a select political assembly, scarcely ever free from the worst taints of party prejudice, and interest, as time hath abundantly demonstrated. It is growing all the time more so. When parties are formed, as formed they will be, upon this basis, repudiation will be a direct issue, to be voted for or against. At first, it will be rejected, but the debt will still remain; the interest will be still accruing, the taxes will still be growing, and the people will be unable to pay them. The persistency of the bold men who strike for liberty and lead the people, will gain them position and power. This issue will scatter the present combination of parties to the four winds. Inspired by hopes of plunder, led and controlled by trimmers and malignant men, their combinations are neither powerful nor enduring. They are like the vultures that follow the scent of armies, to gather up the offal. Or like sneak-thieves and shoplifters, who are always idle and never busy, except when the cry of fire gives them notice of opportunity to load themselves with plunder. But in a great contest, such men will soon give place to earnest friends of true liberty, who will sweep the bonds from the face of the earth, and with them will fall the Banks, tottering to the ground. CHAPTER VII. THE EXPIRING CRIME OF CHASE'S BANKING SYSTEM. ANNEXED is a statement showing the amount of the national debt for each year, since the organization of the government: A thrill of unutterable anguish penetrates the soul of an American, in overlooking the above table. The long period required to extinguish the meagre part of the revolutionary debt assumed by our fathers, was an unheeded warning to their children. The protracted period, through which the small debt of 1816 draggled through the economical administrations of Monroe, Adams and Jackson, reminds us that the youngest child will not live to see the great debt of the civil war liquidated. The war debt of 1816 would not have carried us through six months of our present peace establishment kept up by armies, nor paid one-half of the annual interest on our debt. The following table exhibits values, but does not exhibit the bold robberies of the weekly faro-bank, fed upon the fluctuations of this miserable currency. VALUE OF A CURRENT DOLLAR TO COIN. The following table shows the relative value of a currency dollar to coin, at the different rates of premium from 1 to 100. The fractions given are as near the cents as they can be approached, without the aid of parts of mills. The table will be found valuable for preservation, and will tend to undeceive many who are of the impression that the amount of premium must be subtracted from the currency dollar, in order to ascertain its relative value: These gamblers would induce bankruptcy anywhere, and we cannot hope to avert the hand of fate. The following illustrates to simple minds the process of ruin : 1. $1.50 in paper buys one dollar in gold. The $1.50 in paper is worth..... ..........66 § 2. $1.25 in paper buys $1.00 in gold. The $1.00 in paper is worth..... Amount lost on each dollar...... .80 133 cts. Allowing the currency to be $800,000,000. Should this money appreciate, that $1.60 of paper is worth $1.00 in gold, then the paper is worth 52 cents on the dollar. Then there is a distributed loss of the difference of $220,000,000. It does not mend the matter that this money remains in the hands of Americans. So does the money won and lost among gamblers, with this difference, that gamblers play back with the chances of loss, and risk their purse. In this game, as fast as the money is won of the people, it is carefully funded in gold and silver, preparatory to the coming storm which Heaven will not avert, although it fall with pitiless rage upon the poor. The following is a statement of the bank note circulation of the country at various periods of highest and lowest issues prior to the war: |