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ART.
XIII.-HISTORICAL SKETCH OF PAPER CURRENCY
Hon. C.
Gayarre, pp. 77-87, 1866
INVENTION
OF PAPER MONEY- FRENCH EXPERIENCE - JOHN LAW ENGLISH EXPERIMENTS –
COLONIAL
- RUSSIAN - CONFEDERATE STATES - OUR NATIONAL CURRENCY.
THIS
article, which has been for sometime upon our table, has been amended in a
few particulars by the author, and slightly enlarged. It is an interesting
discussion of the paper money question from the pen of one of the leading
literary and practical men of the South; the author of the "History of Louisiana,"
and other valuable works.-Editor.
IN
the latter months of the year 1863, only two years after the beginning of the
great struggle which has lately terminated, and long before there was any
doubt, in the Southern Confederacy, of its final success, its paper currency
had depreciated to an extent which made it almost valueless. This was looked
upon as the natural and inevitable consequence of its excessive redundancy,
but that redundancy was not the only reason of its depreciation, because it
would have depreciated without it, although to a much less degree. We believe
it may be laid down as an almost settled axiom, without much fear of any
successful refutation, that depreciation is of the very essence of paper
money, whether it exceeds or not the wants of the community where it is
current-that its over-issue only accelerates, or increases the
depreciation-and that the depreciation becomes still more rapid and fatal
when that paper, either by the action of Government, or from the no less
powerful dictates of circumstances becomes a forced currency.
Before
proceeding further, let us, on the threshold of this disquisition, determine
what we are to understand, strictly speaking, by paper currency. We wish it
therefore to be kept in mind that we mean by paper currency all notes or
obligations which are intended as a substitute for coin, and which are not
redeemable on presentation in metallic currency, to the full amount of the
promise to pay contained in those notes or obligations. Otherwise-that is,
when it can be converted at will into gold or silver, or is believed to be
thus convertible-it does not circulate as paper currency, but merely as the
convenient and useful representative of metallic currency, over which it
possesses a decided advantage for transportation and for other purposes of
trade; and so long as this is the case it does not depreciate.
Although
paper currency is a modern invention, the teachings of history in relation to
its effects are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently instructive, if not to
cause it to be altogether rejected by the rulers of nations, at least to
inform them how to guard, as much as possible, against its evils, when it is
once resorted to, if man could be kept from the commission of well-known
errors by the warning examples of his predecessors.
We
believe that we are correct in asserting that paper currency is an invention
of the eighteenth century, and that all those nations which, since its
invention, have had recourse to that fatal panacea, did not, in the end, have
any reason to congratulate themselves upon the experiment.
The
temptation, however, to create in pressing exigencies, by so simple an
operation as that of a printing press, an abundance of fictitious wealth in
substitution of the precious metals, is too overpowering to be resisted by
modern statesmen. The only hope is that it is a resource which will be rarely
used, on account of its dangerous consequences, and that when used, it shall
be with the necessary precautions; although from the knowledge of the past,
and the spectacle offered by the present, we are not justified in expecting
much from the future. Great national wars have generally been the pretext for
the emission of paper currency on a large scale, as a matter of course; and
so much so, that in such contingencies it seems to be the first measure
which, from its seductive facility, presents itself to the mind. It ought
not, however, to be forgotten that the seven years' war of single-handed Prussia, under Frederic the Great, against the combined forces of France, Austria and Russia, in the last century, is a magnificent proof that a long
struggle for national existence can be successfully maintained without having
recourse to paper currency. It is true that, as Macaulay says, "The King
carried on war as no European power has carried on war, except the Committee
of Public Safety during the great agony of the French Revolution."
Prussia, which had been devastated in every one of its provinces by
uncivilized hordes of Croatians, Cossacks, and other barbarians, had been
converted almost into a howling wilderness; but, adds the historian:
"One consolatory circum- stance, indeed, there was; no debt had been
incurred. The burdens of war had been terrible, almost insupportable; but no
arrear was left to embarrass the finances." We all know how soon Prussia, free from debt, recovered from so many wounds which seemed mortal, and how those
meager domains which so recently enjoyed no prouder name than that of
Marquisate of Brandebury, assumed an importance and a rank equal to those of
the most powerful kingdoms of Europe. We admit, however, that such an example
is not easy of imitation, although it shows for the instruction of the world
what the genius of one man and the endurance of a nation can accomplish
without "issuing bonds," and without manufacturing a paper
currency, which inevitably leads to demoralization, repudiation, bankruptcy,
and national disgrace.
We
have said that the genealogy of paper currency can hardly be traced up
further back than the beginning of the eighteenth century. For the first
time, we believe, ill 1702, a paper money was created in France, which was to be withdrawn on the 1st of April, 1705, bearing in the meanwhile the enormous interest of 7i per cent. per annum. It was received by the public with great favor, and
circulated at par. But on the 1st of April, 1705, the paper could not be redeemed, as promised, and in order to induce the holders to consent to its renewal without too importunate clamors of discontent, the Government added 2 per cent. to
the original interest, making 91 per cent. Notwithstanding this
encouragement, this tempting bait-notwithstanding this sop thrown to the
fears of the multitude, the currency lost in a few days as much as 75 per
cent. In 1706, by a decree of the Government, it was made a legal tender, and
thus became a forced currency, under the penalty of pillory, exile, and a
fine of three thousand livres. But, strange as it may appear to those among
us who favor measures of this description, from that moment the currency
became valueless, so much so, that the Government paid one-fourth of it in
coin, on condition that the rest should be converted into treasury
notes-which conversion was followed by other conversions, until at last the
Government emitted notes bearing an interest of 20 per cent., but without
succeeding in stopping the increasing depreciation of every paper currency
that was issued in rapid succession. Merchants asked their customers in what
currency the goods desired were to be paid for, and had one price for those
who offered to pay in gold or silver, and another price for those who
tendered paper; and frequently to those of this latter denomination they
pretended that they had no goods at all on hand. The peasantry of France refused also to take it, as many of the Southern farmers refused to take Confederate
currency. A maximum rate having been decreed, at which the French peasants
were compelled to sell the produce of their labors, many ceased to work their
lands. This circumstance, combined with the effects of an unusually rigorous
winter, produced such a famine in 1709, that, even in Paris, only coarse
brown bread was used for several months; that in the very palace of Versailles, the seat of so much splendor, several families fed on bread made of
oatmeal. and that the celebrated Madam de Maintenon, the avowed confidential
friend and the secret spouse of one of the most magnificent monarchs of the
world, gave the example of abstemious frugality by partaking of this rude
diet. The price of wheat flour had gone up to 120 livres the sack, but the
Government having found out the means of reducing the amount of the paper
currency afloat, flour suddenly fell down to 40 livres. It would be
profitable and instructive to examine separately and in detail the curious
devices to which financiering ingenuity resorted in those days, but this
could not be done here without exceeding the bounds which we have prescribed
to this article.
Soon
after, under the regency of the Duke of Orleans, followed the introduction of
the famous' scheme, invented by John Law, to absorb the paper currency which
had been emitted with so little success in the preceding reign, to relieve
the other necessities of the State and supply the scarcity of the precious
metals. That wonderfully skillful adventurer had first attempted to try his
great financial experiment in Holland, but had found an insurmountable
obstacle in the cold phlegmatic temperament of the Dutch, whom he could not
dazzle into the adoption of his magical discovery of assimilating paper to
gold and silver. Then, in 1705, he had, under the patronage of some of the
highest magnates of Scotland, whom the plausibility of his plans had
fascinated, presented to the Parliament of that kingdom a scheme for removing
the difficulties resulting from the scarcity of coin and from the stoppage of
payments by its national bank; and in illustration of his views on that
subject, he gave publicity to a work entitled: "Money and trade
considered, with a proposal to supply the nation with money." What could
be more tempting?
The
proposal of Law was that commissioners, appointed in the manner provided for
by Parliament, and remaining under the control of that body, should be
empowered to issue notes, either in the way of loan at ordinary interest upon
land mortgages, provided the loan should not exceed half; or at most
two-thirds of the value of the land; or upon land pledges redeemable within a
certain period of time, to the full value of the land; or, lastly, upon sale,
irredeemably, to the amount of the price agreed upon. The most timid, as he
conceived, could not object to this kind of paper money on the ground of its
being deficient in safe guarantees, and he maintained that it would
constitute a currency equal in value to gold and silver coin, to which it
might even be preferred for reasons which he enumerated in his work. Thus a
piece of land would not only be a farm answering all the purposes for which
it was originally destined, but also, according to its value, so much capital
thrown into circulation. The wealth of the kingdom would evidently be
doubled, argued Law, and an incalculable impulse given to industry and
enterprise of every sort. By this ingenious operation a double source of
profit was to be secured to Scotland, the one proceeding from the
agricultural produce of her soil, and the other from the employment of so
much capital as that soil represented. But this scheme, though presented to a
needy public in a glowing style, and with arguments elaborate with exquisite
art, and though powerfully supported by the court party, and by the influence
of such men as the Duke of Argyle and others of high, social position, was
rejected by the Parliament on the ground that, " to establish any kind of
paper credit, so as to oblige it to pass as currency, was an improper
expedient for the nation." This conclusion was worthy of the proverbial
sagacity, prudence and integrity of the Scottish people. That a government
should change its metallic currency into printed notes or promises to pay,
and compel its citizens, who had loaned certain sums in gold and silver, to
receive in reimbursement, the same amount in depreciated or worthless paper
money, may, not without some appearance of reason, have appeared, to the Puritanic
but brave and loyal descendants of Wallace and Bruce, a somewhat doubtful
question of morality and policy. They also apprehended that if Law’s
plan were adopted, all the real estate in the kingdom would thereby be
brought to a complete dependence upon the bank proposed by him, and
collaterally upon the Government, as the bank itself was dependent on the
Government.
It
is useless to add that the wisdom of England and her knowledge of the laws of
trade and the exigencies of public credit prevented her from listening to the
proposals of Law. But, nothing abashed by these repulses, Law, after the
fashion of Columbus searching for a sovereign into whose lap he should be
permitted to shower the treasures of America, wandered about in quest of some
Power who would accept the El Dorado which teemed in his brains. In his
peregrinations he repaired to the Court of Turin, and addressed the reigning
prince, Victor Amadeus, on the financial conceptions which he thought had
been so unwisely rejected: but that prudent sovereign shrewdly and quaintly
answered, "I am not rich enough to afford being ruined."
This
short historical sketch shows the instinctive aversion entertained in Europe for paper currency, when it made its first appearance at the beginning of the
eighteenth century. It is evident that the dangers of such an innovation were
as apparent then as they are now, although not actually demonstrated by
experience as they have been since. It was impossible to be oblivious of the
fact that, for ages, great nations had existed, with great military and
commercial wants, as great comparatively as in modern times, and that they
had met those wants without any paper currency, or anything like it. Why
depart from the line of safe precedents? said the enemies of the new system.
Coins, it must be admitted, had frequently been debased by governments as a
momentary resource, but always with fatal effects; and the policy of paper
money was certainly, they thought, as questionable as that of adulterating
coin for temporary purposes. It is possible, however, that paper currency
might have been distinguished as an earlier invention if the press had been
sooner known, or if, shortly after it was known, it had worked with as much
marvelous rapidity as in our days.
Is
was at a time when the wise heads of France could not see their way through
the embarrassments of the national treasury, that John Law came forward with
his panacea, which was to liquidate the debt of the State, to increase its
revenue, and at the same time diminish taxation. All these prodigies were to
be suddenly produced by the easiest process in the world-the creation of a
paper currency-which, representing all the commercial, agricultural and other
sources of the kingdom pledged to its ultimate redemption, would add another
currency to the one already existing-another currency equally as good and
solid as that metallic currency which was no longer adequate to the
increasing wants of the nation. The Regent, who was incessantly craving for
money, and who had an imagination naturally and easily captivated by specious
schemes and attractive novelties, eagerly jumped at the conclusions of Law,
and granted him all the required facilities to carry into practical operation
his new system of finances. With wonderful celerity the adventurer soon
created the most stupendous financial fabric ever presented to the world! All
the national property and all the revenues whatever of one of the most
powerful kingdoms of Europe, and the profits to be derived from extraordinary
monopolies and from other sources which it is useless to enumerate, were
wedged together into a unit, and that unit made responsible for the security
of the new circulating medium to be introduced into that country! Could any
currency be better than that which rested on such foundations? exclaimed the
advocates of Law. And yet what were the results? The year 1720 saw his
financial system expanding like a gigantic mushroom, embellished with hues as
bright and dazzling as might emanate from a huge mountain of pure and solid
gold, under the rays of a tropical sun. But we all know that in one day, as
it were, it withered away, leaving desolation brooding on ruin, where before
all was hope and joy.
Then
happened what has but too frequently been seen since: the superabundance of
paper money produced a great scarcity of coin. It became evident to the most
obtuse, or to the most sanguine, that this prolific paper currency had not a
sufficient representative for its redemption, and that before long it would be
no more cared for than worthless rags. As soon as that discovery was made; as
soon as it was ascertained that public credit was dead, and that the vast
paper currency was nothing but a fit shroud for its corpse, every one
hastened to convert the notes he had into gold or silver, and to realize the
fortune he had acquired by stock jobbing or speculation. We see the same
process now going on among us. The most keen sighted, or the most prudent,
not only exchanged their notes for specie, but sent it out of France, as speculators lately did in the Confederate States, and it is calculated that in
this way the kingdom was drained of five hundred millions of livres!
To
avert the danger, the Government, in less than eight months promulgated
thirty-three edicts to tax the value of gold and silver, to preserve and to
increase the metallic currency, and to limit the amount of gold and silver
which might be converted into plate and jewelry. No payment in specie could
be made except for small sums —that is to say: paper became a legal
tender and discharged debts-exactly what our legislators have thought would
be a remedy to the depreciation of our own paper. Nay, more —the
standard of coin was purposely, by royal decrees, kept in the most
bewildering state of fluctuation, while the value of the notes was decreed to
be invariable. It was expected that, the value of gold and silver coin being
thus made so uncertain, there would be a strong inducement to convert them
into notes bearing interest and decreed invariable in their value. But this
expectation was not realized. The next contrivance was to make rents, taxes
and custom-house duties payable only in paper; but this failed again to
answer the purpose. As al climax to these high-handed measures, individuals,
as well as secular and religious communities, were prohibited under very
severe penalties from having in their possession more than five hundred
livres in specie, or about $100. This royal ordinance established the most
intolerable inquisition, and gave rise to the most vexatious researches on
the part of the police. The house of no citizen was free from the visits of
the agents of power; every man trembled to see denunciation lurking by his
fireside, and to harbor treachery by the very altars of his household gods. But
this also failed.
The
depreciation of the paper currency continued to be so rapid, and the alarm of
the public became such, that it was thought necessary at least to reduce
considerably the disproportion between the coin supposed to be in the kingdom
and what we shall call, for a better understanding of the case, the treasury
notes of the Government, Thus, on the 21st of May, 1720, an edict was issued,
which, in violation of the pledge of the State and the most solemn
stipulations, and as a beginning of bankruptcy, cut down to one-half the
whole paper currency-a measure which was advocated in the late Southern
Confederacy, to make good the rest of their notes. The holders of the notes,
it was said, would have no legitimate right to complain, since their one-half
would be equal in value to the whole, and since they would purchase all they
needed for half of the price which they were paying. Besides, it was better
to lose one-half than the whole. Such compromises constantly took place in
ordinary transactions between individuals; and after all, it had become a
matter of necessity, to save the Government. Such was the self deceiving
logic of ignorance; such was the flimsy sophistry of dishonesty. What was the
consequence? It was instantaneous and overwhelming. At once all confidence
was lost in the notes, general consternation prevailed, and no one would have
given twenty cents in hard coin for millions of the paper currency, which was
suddenly reduced to zero by that very measure which was intended to save it.
Any
one studying the financial part of the history of the regency of the Duke of
Orleans, would cease to tax his brains in the vain hope to discover anything
new to bolster up a decaying paper currency; he must content himself to
imitate, in consequence of not being able to invent. But is it not reasonable
to suppose that, as the original conceptions which he would borrow, backed as
they were by despotic power, proved invariably abortive, his imitation,
however ingenious, would not be more successful?
Hardly
more than one-half of a century had elapsed since the memorable explosion of
this financial experiment, when France returned to the same expedient with
the same imprudent confidence as before, and in her hours of distress took
again to her lips the same poisonous cup which had been once so fatal to her
national honor and prosperity. It was at the beginning of the mighty
revolution which was to bring to the scaffold her time-honored monarchy and
convulse Europe, that the introduction of paper money was vehemently
advocated on that most convenient and most unanswerable of all pleas-the plea
of necessity. Reasons were given with all the charms of eloquence why the
system of Law had been disastrous, and why the new one could not fail of
success. The errors of the past would serve only as beacons to guide, and not
to mislead; the age had become more enlightened, and an improved machinery
could accomplish what it had not done in its original state of imperfection.
What capitalist had, in his private business, ever refused to take a
promissory note when guaranteed to his satisfaction? and had not France better guaranties to give than individuals! Who could object, for instance, to take
the treasury notes of France, which should be exchangeable at will, and without
delay, for fertile fields, productive forests, rich mines of all kinds,
splendid palaces, multitudinous residences in cities, towns and villages, or
in the country, all registered in a book open to inspection, and to be
procured on a ratio of appraisement falling much below their real value! Were
not, in addition, all the resources and the chivalrous faith of
France-pledged for the redemption of those notes? Such was the basis on which
the famous assignats were issued. The subject was thoroughly discussed and
exhausted by the highest intellects of France, by such men as Mirabeau,
l'Abb6 Maury, Talleyrand, and a host of other distinguished personages of
great merit, although of less fame. Nothing can be added to their luminous
expositions of the advantages, or disadvantages, of paper currency, and of
the means to be employed to make it an engine of production, if possible, and
not of destruction. Afirabeau, who had always been opposed to such financial
operations, pretended to have changed his views, and advocated the assignats
on the ground of the novel and undoubted security which they offered to the
public, and, as a last resort, invoked the plea of necessity, as it usually
happens when it is desired to justify the unjustifiable. On the other side, Talleyrand
and the celebrated Abbe Maury predicted that the remedy would turn out to be
a noxious drug, by which the patient would be killed. Posterity now knows
that they were right.
But it was said to them, as it is said on all occasions
when the emission of paper money is opposed: granting that your objections
are correct, what substitute do you offer? I will quote Abbe Maury's answer,
in substance, if not in the very words he used: "I have," he said,
"demonstrated to you beyond refutation, that paper money is a hyena that
will devour us all. This is a sufficient reason for not admitting the wild
beast among you. Only declare by a recorded vote that you reject, now and
forever, the idea of having recourse to paper money, and there will be no
lack of men who will come out with financial plans that will be sufficient to
the wants of France. I, for one, have on hand one of those plans. But what
will be the use of offering to you hard-fisted measures which will task your
honesty, your patriotism and your powers of endurance, when you are
determined to yield to the blandishments of paper money, and to take the road
to perdition, because, at its entrance, it is smooth and easy, whilst that to
salvation is rugged and toilsome?" Such language and such vaccinations
were not listened to, and the printing presses of the French Government soon
became, in the manufacturing of paper money, as active and prolific as those
of the two parties engaged in the tremendous war through which we have lately
passed. We all know what was the fate of the assignats.
If there ever was a paper money which should have answered
its purposes without depreciation, it is that which was introduced in
Pennsylvania in 1720, with such precautions and guaranties as ought to have
dissipated the alarms of the most timid. The commerce of Philadelphia was
then suffering greatly from the want of specie, or of a proper medium of
exchange, and paper money was resorted to within very limited bounds-the
issue never exceeding sixty-seven thousand pounds. The Provincial -Government
became the lender of that money. Nobody could borrow of it more than one
hundred pounds, nor could obtain it without a mortgage on real estate worth
double the value of the sum borrowed, excluding from the estimate the value
of the buildings. The borrower was to pay the interest under the penalty of
eviction. The capital was to be reimbursed in seven equal installments; and
on the return of the paper into the Provincial treasury it was to be burned.
In addition to these securities resting on the private wealth of individuals,
all the resources of the Province were pledged for the redemption of the
paper. Could there be any better guaranties? At first the system worked very
- well; but in a short time the change between Philadelphia and London, which was at one hundred and thirty-three when the paper was emitted, rose
gradually to one hundred and eighty. The paper itself went on depreciating to
sixty per cent., until it was converted into Continental money in} 1778. A glance at Bancroft's History of the United States, page 380, vol. iii., will show the fate of every other colonial paper. As to
Continental money we shall say nothing, its history being but too well known.
Russia
had also a paper currency about the same time, and in 1790 that paper was
losing thirty-three per-cent. in St. Petersburg, and much more in the
provinces. In fact, as we have already said in the beginning of this article,
there never was in any country, except with one trifling exception, a paper
money which did not depreciate considerably. Bank notes, when they circulate
at par, can not be classed among paper currencies; they are the mere
representatives of the gold and silver which can be had for them on
presentation. But we know what becomes of them as soon as they cease to be
the representatives of the precious metals, or as soon as there are any
apprehensions on the subject. Even the notes of the Bank of England, the
strongest institution of the kind in the world, and to which the very
strength and life of the Government of Great Britain has been imparted, never
failed to depreciate whenever it suspended specie payment, although done at
the request of the Government, for national ad patriotic purposes. In 1814,
those notes were losing twenty-five per cent., and there is no telling what
would have been their further depreciation, if a coalition of the whole of Europe against Napoleon had not restored to England the peace which she so much needed.
The only paper currency which did not depreciate, and to
which we have already alluded, is that which was guarantied by deposits of
tobacco in public warehouses in Virginia and Maryland. There is certainly
something very suggestive in the fact that it was the only paper currency
which did not suffer from depreciation. The reason is obvious. It was because
tobacco was then tantamount to gold. Thus it is probable that if the present
currency of the United States, or greenbacks, was guarantied by deposits of
cotton equal to the whole circulation, it would not now be suffering a depreciation
of forty-four per cent., which threatens every day to become greater,
notwithstanding the efforts of the Government.
From the premises and the facts laid down in the preceding
pages flows the inevitable deduction that the Confederate States and the United States adopted in their late struggle a fatal mode of relief. But it is
too late to discuss whether something better might have been done. All that
remains for us to do is to repair the mischief produced by our imprudence and
passions; and in our efforts let us never lose sight of these axiomatic
truths: that paper currency is always bad; that it is worse when it becomes
superabundant; and that when it assumes such proportions as to reasonably
preclude the possibility of its final redemption in specie, it cannot be
prevented from becoming worthless by the devices of ally legislative
ingenuity. We can hope for safety only by returning, as soon as possible, to
the broad and honest specie basis, which has always been advocated by the
Democratic party, and upon which no scaffolding of fraud, corruption,
demoralization and bankruptcy can be built.
The paper money of the United States is still in
existence, and therefore its history remains to be written; but we may
legitimately, however, make some observations on its origin. The Constitution
says: "Congress shall have power to coin money, regulate the value
thereof, and of foreign coin." According to all English dictionaries, to
coin money means to mint or stamp metals for money, and money means metals
coined for the purposes of commerce, and the value of which is ascertained by
the stamp. By virtue of this article, the currency of the United States, since the formation of their Government, had been a metallic currency until
recently. But lately the words: to coin money, have been interpreted by the
dominant party in the United States, to mean the power to emit, instead of a
silver dollar, a piece of paper with this phrase: "We, the United States
of America, promise to pay to bearer one dollar," at a time remaining
indefinite, and to declare that the one is the substitute of the other. If
coined money signifies a greenback, then it follows that foreign coin
signifies also a promissory note, and that Congress has the power to regulate
the value of foreign paper currency, and determine at what rate we shall
receive it. But it was not enough for the Government to decree that a piece
of paper was a piece of coin, it was necessary to compel the people to accept
it as such. Hence it was made a legal tender, and a wide door opened to
fraud, corruption, violation of contracts, and general demoralization and
ruin. It may have been a matter of necessity, but it can hardly be denied
that it is urgent for us to return to the favorite currency of Democracy
-gold and silver, and to a strict interpretation of the Constitution, after
the doctrine of the school established by Jefferson.
It is reported of Cardinal Richelieu that he said,
"Give me any two lines written by a man, and they will be sufficient to
hang him." Had he lived in our days, he would probably have said,
"Give me any two lines of the Constitution of the United States, and they will afford me sufficient authority to assume every dictatorial
power which I need." The Black Republican party is composed of constructionists
after the fashion of Richelieu. We hope that it is not disloyal or illegal to
wish that we may soon get rid of them and of paper money.
Charleston Voice
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