This position is strengthened by the recollection
that the revenue is to be collected in Specie, so that the mere amount of
revenue is not all that is withdrawn, but the amount of paper circulation
that the forty millions would serve as a basis to is withdrawn, which
would be in a sound state at least one hundred millions. When one
hundred millions, or more, of the circulation we now have shall be
withdrawn, who can contemplate without terror the distress, ruin,
bankruptcy, and beggary that must follow? The man who has purchased any
article--say a horse--on credit, at one hundred dollars, when there are
two hundred millions circulating in the country, if the quantity be
reduced to one hundred millions by the arrival of pay-day, will find the
horse but sufficient to pay half the debt; and the other half must either
be paid out of his other means, and thereby become a clear loss to him,
or go unpaid, and thereby become a clear loss to his creditor. What I
have here said of a single case of the purchase of a horse will hold good
in every case of a debt existing at the time a reduction in the quantity
of money occurs, by whomsoever, and for whatsoever, it may have been
contracted.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266