I know that the system of bank credit must
always rest on a specie basis, and that it constantly needs to be
strictly guarded and properly restrained; and it may be so guarded and
restrained. We need not give up the good which belongs to it, through
fear of the evils which may follow from its abuse. We have the power to
take security against these evils. It is our business, as statesmen, to
adopt that security; it is our business not to prostrate, or attempt to
prostrate, the system, but to use those means of precaution, restraint,
and correction which experience has sanctioned, and which are ready at
our hands.
It would be to our everlasting reproach, it would be placing us below
the general level of the intelligence of civilized states, to admit that
we cannot contrive means to enjoy the benefits of bank circulation, and
of avoiding, at the same time, its dangers. Indeed, Sir, no contrivance
is necessary. It is _contrivance_, and the love of contrivance, that
spoil all. We are destroying ourselves by a remedy which no evil called
for. We are ruining perfect health by nostrums and quackery. We have
lived hitherto under a well constructed, practical, and beneficial
system; a system not surpassed by any in the world; and it seems to me
to be presuming largely, largely indeed, on the credulity and
self-denial of the people, to rush with such sudden and impetuous haste
into new schemes and new theories, to overturn and annihilate all that
we have so long found useful.
Pages:
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033