REVIVAL OF THE GOLD CURRENCY.
A measure of relief was now at hand, before which the machinery
of distress was to balk, and cease its long and cruel labors: it
was the passage of the bill for equalizing the value of gold and
silver, and legalizing the tender of foreign coins of both metals.
The bills were brought forward in the House by Mr. Campbell P. White
of New-York, and passed after an animated contest, in which the
chief question was as to the true relative value of the two metals,
varied by some into a preference for national bank paper. Fifteen
and five-eighths to one was the ratio of nearly all who seemed best
calculated, from their pursuits, to understand the subject. The
thick array of speakers was on that side; and the eighteen banks
of the city of New-York, with Mr. Gallatin at their head, favored
that proportion. The difficulty of adjusting this value, so that
neither metal should expel the other, had been the stumbling block
for a great many years; and now this difficulty seemed to be as
formidable as ever. Refined calculations were gone into: scientific
light was sought: history was rummaged back to the times of the
Roman empire: and there seemed to be no way of getting to a concord
of opinion either from the lights of science, the voice of history,
or the result of calculations. The author of this View had (in his
speeches on the subject), taken up the question in a practical point
of view, regardless of history, and calculations, and the opinions
of bank officers; and looking to the actual, and equal, circulation
of the two metals in different countries, he saw that this equality
and actuality of circulation had existed for above three hundred
years in the Spanish dominions of Mexico and South America, where
the proportion was 16 to one. Taking his stand upon this single
fact, as the practical test which solved the question, all the real
friends of the gold currency soon rallied to it. Mr. White gave up
the bill which he had first introduced, and adopted the Spanish
ratio. Mr. Clowney of South Carolina, Mr. Gillet and Mr. Cambreleng
of New-York, Mr. Ewing of Indiana, Mr. McKim of Maryland, and other
speakers, gave it a warm support. Mr. John Quincy Adams would vote
for it, though he thought the gold was over-valued; but if found to
be so, the difference could be corrected hereafter. The principal
speakers against it and in favor of a lower rate, were Messrs.
Gorham of Massachusetts; Selden of New-York; Binney of Pennsylvania;
and Wilde of Georgia. And, eventually the bill was passed by a
large majority--145 to 36. In the Senate it had an easy passage.
Mr. Calhoun and Webster supported it: Mr. Clay opposed it: and on
the final vote there were but seven negatives: Messrs. Chambers
of Maryland; Clay; Knight of Rhode Island; Alexander Porter of
Louisiana; Silsbee of Massachusetts; Southard of New Jersey; Sprague
of Maine.
The good effects of the bill were immediately seen. Gold began to
flow into the country through all the channels of commerce: old
chests gave up their hordes: the mint was busy: and in a few months,
and as if by magic, a currency banished from the country for thirty
years, overspread the land, and gave joy and confidence to all
the pursuits of industry. But this joy was not universal. A large
interest connected with the Bank of the United States, and its
subsidiary and subaltern institutions, and the whole paper system,
vehemently opposed it; and spared neither pains nor expense to check
its circulation, and to bring odium upon its supporters. People
were alarmed with counterfeits. Gilt counters were exhibited in the
markets, to alarm the ignorant. The coin itself was burlesqued, in
mock imitations of brass or copper, with grotesque figures, and
ludicrous inscriptions--the "whole hog" and the "better currency,"
being the favorite devices. Many newspapers expended their daily
wit in its stale depreciation. The most exalted of the paper money
party, would recoil a step when it was offered to them, and beg
for paper. The name of "Gold humbug" was fastened upon the person
supposed to have been chiefly instrumental in bringing the derided
coin into existence; and he, not to be abashed, made its eulogy
a standing theme--vaunting its excellence, boasting its coming
abundance, to spread over the land, flow up the Mississippi, shine
through the interstices of the long silken purse, and to be locked
up safely in the farmer's trusty oaken chest. For a year there was
a real war of the paper against gold. But there was something that
was an overmatch for the arts, or power, of the paper system in this
particular, and which needed no persuasions to guide it when it had
its choice: it was the instinctive feeling of the masses! which told
them that money which would jingle in the pocket was the right money
for them--that hard money was the right money for hard hands--that
gold was the true currency for every man that had any thing true to
give for it, either in labor or property: and upon these instinctive
feelings gold became the avidious demand of the vast operative and
producing classes.