arguments that are now used to justify restraints upon banking, and limitations upon the amount of currency, in order to maintain specie payments, proceed wholly from gross ignorance or fraud.[1]
Perhaps we may conclude that money is simply property that is cut up, or divided, into such pieces or parcels as are convenient and acceptable to be given and received in exchange for other property; and that any man who has any property whatever that can be cut up, or divided, into such pieces or parcels, has a perfect legal and moral right thus to cut it up, and then freely offer it in the market, in competition with all other money, and in exchange for any other commodity, that may there be offered in competition with, or in exchange for, it. Perhaps we may conclude that the simple fact of these pieces or parcels being called money, or not called money,—of their bearing the stamp or license of the government, or not bearing it,—has nothing to do with his right to offer them in the market, or to sell them, or lend them, or exchange them, on such terms as the parties to the contracts may mutually agree upon; that the simple facts that they are property,—property that is naturally vendible,—and that they are his property, entitle him to sell them, or lend them, to whomsoever may wish to buy, or to borrow, them; and to do all this on such terms as the parties, free of all interference from the government, may agree upon. And perhaps we may conclude that these pieces or parcels may as rightfully be bought, sold, and exchanged (if the parties so agree) by means of contracts on paper—notes, checks, drafts, bills of exchange, or whatever else—promising to deliver them on demand, or at times agreed on, as by actual delivery of the parcels themselves, at the time of the contract.
Perhaps we may conclude that, instead of Congress having the right, in General Butler’s phrase, to “prohibit, by the severest penalties, every other person, corporation, or institution [than the government itself, or those whom it licenses] from issuing any
- ↑ We can have a much better system even than the Scotch; better than the system of promissory notes; one that will furnish more money (if more can be used), and be more easy and convenient for the bankers and better for the public. But freedom to make experiments with any and all systems that men may choose to experiment with is what is necessary to give assurance, at all times, that we have the best possible system.
