Monday, May 29, 2017

Paper Money

Via comment by name789 on Radical Republican Selective Racial Equality
 "Brigadier General Garfield had been fond and an active proponent of targeting and attacking civilians and their dwelling places and their food supplies. Following the war he joined the House of Representatives and legislated for bond interests. Rhe reconstructionist party was also the party of money power. If the Southern Senators and Representatives had been allowed to take their seats they would have prevented the establishment of permanent debt, the turning treasury notes into gold bonds, the credit strenghtening act The federalists and the whigs had been struggling to establish permanent debt and banknote as unit of measure, legal-tender and currency from day one; the southern withdrawal and the war gave them the opportunity, and they progeny were not going to let the pesky ones back in until they accomplished their aims."

 http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-paper-is-poverty-it-is-only-the-ghost-of-money-and-not-money-itself-thomas-jefferson-65-8-0805.jpg

House of Representatives
Friday, May 15, 1868.
Speech of future President James Garfield, on the


Financial Policy of the Country.

 Mr. Garfield.  Mr. Chairman, I am aware that financial subjects are dull and uninviting in comparison with those heroic themes which have absorbed the attention of Congress for the last five years.  To turn from the consideration of armies and navies, victories and defeats, to the long array of figures which exhibit the debt, expenditure, taxation, and industry of the nation, requires no little courage and self-denial;  but to those questions we must come, and to their solution Congresses, political parties, and all thoughtful citizens must give their best efforts for many years to come.  Our public debt, the greatest financial fact of this century, stands in the pathway of all political parties and, like the Egyptian Sphynx, propounds its riddles.  All the questions which spring out of the public debt, such as loans, bonds, tariffs, internal taxation, banking, and currency, present greater difficulties than usually come within the scope of American polities.  They cannot be settled by force of numbers nor carried by assault, as an army storms the works of an enemy.  Patient examination of facts, careful study of principles which do not always appear on the surface, and which involve the most difficult problems of political economy, are the weapons of this warfare.  No sentiment of national pride should make us unmindful of the fact that we have less experience in this direction than any other civilized nation.  If this fact is not creditable to our intellectual reputation, it at least affords a proof that our people have not hitherto been crushed under the burdens of taxation.  We must consent to be instructed by the experience of other nations, and be willing to approach these questions, not with the dogmatism of teachers, but as seekers after truth.

It is evident, that both in Congress and among the people, there is great diversity of opinion on all these themes.  He is indeed a bold man who, at this time, claims to have mastered any one of them, or reached conclusions on all its features satisfactory even to himself.  For myself, I claim only to have studied earnestly to know what the best interests of the country demand at the hands of Congress.  I have listened with great respect to the opinions of those with whom I differ most, and only ask for myself what I award to all others, a patient hearing.

More @ Yamaguchy

3 comments:

  1. Thomas Jefferson to Colonel Edward Carrington,
    Paris, May 27, 1788.


    "There are rumors that the Austrian army is obliged to retire a little; that the Spanish squadron is gone to South America; that the English have excited a rebellion there; and some others equally unauthenticated. I do not mention them in my letter to Mr. Jay, because they are unauthenticated. The bankruptcies in London have re-commenced with new force. There is no saying where this fire will end, perhaps in the general conflagration of all their paper. If not now, it must erelong. With only twenty millions of coin, and three or four hundred millions of circulating paper, public and private, nothing is necessary but a general panic, produced either by failures, invasion, or any other cause, and the whole visionary fabric vanishes into air, and shows that paper is poverty, that it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself. One hundred years ago, they had twenty odd millions of coin. Since that they have brought in from Holland by borrowing forty millions more, yet they have but twenty millions left, and they talk of being rich, and of having the balance of trade in their favor."
    http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/jefferson/carrington.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One hundred years ago, they had twenty odd millions of coin. Since that they have brought in from Holland by borrowing forty millions more, yet they have but twenty millions left, and they talk of being rich, and of having the balance of trade in their favor."

      Amazing. Thanks.

      Delete
    2. enjoy; Thomas Jefferson on money, banking
      http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/jefferson/jefind.html

      U.S. Congress on money, banking
      http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/speeches.html

      Delete