It has been asserted by one of our profound and most gifted statesmen
that--
Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind,
none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper
money. This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich
man's fields by the sweat of the poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny,
oppression, excessive taxation--these bear lightly on the happiness of
the mass of the community compared with a fraudulent currency and the
robberies committed by depreciated paper. Our own history has recorded
for our instruction enough, and more than enough, of the demoralizing
tendency, the injustice, and the intolerable oppression on the virtuous
and well disposed of a degraded paper currency authorized by law or in
any way countenanced by government.
It is one of the most successful devices, in times of peace or war,
expansions or revulsions, to accomplish the transfer of all the precious
metals from the great mass of the people into the hands of the few,
where they are hoarded in secret places or deposited in strong boxes
under bolts and bars, while the people are left to ensure all the
inconvenience, sacrifice, and demoralization resulting from the use
of a depreciated and worthless paper money.
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