Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 809 pages of information about Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4.

Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 809 pages of information about Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4.

3.  This loan of ten millions at five per cent., is to be once for all, only.  Neither the terms of the scheme, nor their own prudence could ever permit them to add to the circulation in the same, or any other way, for the supplies of the succeeding years of the war.  These succeeding years then are to be left unprovided for, and the means of doing it in a great measure precluded.

4.  The individual subscribers, on paying their own five millions of cash to Congress, become the depositories of ten millions of stock belonging to Congress, five millions belonging to the States, and five millions to themselves, say twenty millions, with which, as no one has a right ever to see their books, or to ask a question, they may choose their time for running away, after adding to their booty the proceeds of as much of their own notes as they shall be able to throw into circulation.

5.  The subscribers may be one, two, or three, or more individuals, (many single individuals being able to pay in the five millions,) whereupon this bank oligarchy or monarchy enters the field with ninety millions of dollars, to direct and control the politics of the nation; and of the influence of these institutions on our politics, and into what scale it will be thrown, we have had abundant experience.  Indeed, England herself may be the real, while her friend and trustee here shall be the nominal and sole subscriber.

6.  This state of things is to be fastened on us, without the power of relief, for forty or fifty years.  That is to say, the eight millions of people now existing, for the sake of receiving one dollar and twenty-five cents apiece at five per cent, interest, are to subject the fifty millions of people who are to succeed them within that term, to the payment of forty-five millions of dollars, principal and interest, which will be payable in the course of the fifty years.

7.  But the great and national advantage is to be the relief of the present scarcity of money, which is produced and proved by,

1.  The additional industry created to supply a variety of articles for the troops, ammunition, he.

2.  By the cash sent to the frontiers, and the vacuum occasioned in the trading towns by that.

3.  By the late loans.

4.  By the necessity of recurring to shavers with good paper, which the existing banks are not able to take up; and

5.  By the numerous applications for bank charters, showing that an increase of circulating medium is wanting.

Let us examine these causes and proofs of the want of an increase of medium, one by one.

1.  The additional industry created to supply a variety of articles for troops, ammunition, &c.  Now I had always supposed that war produced a diminution of industry, by the number of hands it withdraws from industrious pursuits, for employment in arms &c. which are totally unproductive.  And if it calls for new industry in the articles of ammunition and other military supplies, the hands are borrowed from other branches on which the demand is slackened by the war; so that it is but a shifting of these hands from one pursuit to another.

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