As early as 1815, Mr. Webster acquired a national reputation by his speech on the proposition to establish a national bank, which he opposed, since it was to be relieved from the necessity of redeeming its notes in specie.  This was at the close of the war with Great Britain, when the country was poor, business prostrated, and the finances disordered.  To relieve this pressure, many wanted an inflated paper currency, which should stimulate trade.  But all this Mr. Webster opposed, as certain to add to the evils it was designed to cure.  He would have a bank, indeed, but he insisted it should be established on sound financial principles, with notes redeemable in gold and silver.  And he brought a great array of facts to show the certain and utter failure of a system of banking operations which disregarded the fundamental financial laws.  He maintained that an inflated currency produced only temporary and illusive benefits.  Nor did he believe in hopes which were not sustained by experience.  “Banks,” said he, “are not revenue.  They may afford facilities for its collection and distribution, but they cannot be sources of national income, which must flow from deeper fountains.  Whatever bank-notes are not convertible into gold and silver, at the will of the holder, become of less value than gold and silver.  No solidity of funds, no confidence in banking operations, has ever enabled them to keep up their paper to the value of gold and silver any longer than they paid gold and silver on demand.”  Similar sentiments he advanced, in 1816, in his speech on the legal currency, and also in 1832, when he said that a disordered currency is one of the greatest of political evils,—­fatal to industry, frugality, and economy.  “It fosters the spirit of speculation and extravagance.  It is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man’s field by the sweat of the poor man’s brow.”  In these days, when principles of finance are better understood, these remarks may seem like platitudes; but they were not so fifty or sixty years ago, for then they had the force of new truth, although even then they were the result of political wisdom, based on knowledge and experience; and his views were adopted, for he appealed to reason.

Webster’s financial speeches are very calm, like the papers of Hamilton and Jay in “The Federalist,” but as interesting and persuasive as those of Gladstone, the greatest finance-minister of modern times.  They are plain, simple, direct, without much attempt at rhetoric.  He spoke like a great lawyer to a bench of judges.  The solidity and soundness of his views made him greatly respected, and were remarkable in a young man of thirty-four.  The subsequent financial history of the country shows that he was prophetic.  All his predictions have come to pass.  What is more marked in our history than the extravagance and speculation attending the expansion of paper money irredeemable in gold and silver?  What misery and disappointment have resulted from