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to mint price, and for keeping it invariably at that price by alternate contractions and augmentations of the issue of Bank Notes, according to the variations in the market price of gold, without reference to the wants, interests, or income of the country.
There could not possibly be any hesitation which of these two principles should be the foundation of our national policy, did not some violent and predominant circumstance interfere.
And I conceive this circumstance is the following: that as we have a Paper Currency, unless we combine and unite it, with a fixed standard of intrinsic value, it may from excess be depreciated to any possible extent. And that the preservation of this union in value is so essential, that all conveniences, all utilities attending a full and redundant currency, are to be sacrificed to it.—
Having thus opened my veiw of the chief principles on which the national decision upon the question of our Currency will turn, I proceed to the object of this Paper, which is to remove some important errors and misconceptions which seem to have made an impression, a false impression on the public mind.—
The two great points upon which the discussions on the restriction of our currency have turned, are the nature of our money standard, and the cause of the Rise in the price of gold.
With respect to the first point, on one part it has been contended, that our standard was some ideal pound sterling, of an abstract theoretical nature, which formed our money unit. On the other part it is contended, that our money standard is the mere Quantity of gold of a certain purity, which quantity and purity are ascertained by law, and form the Mint standard.
The first of these explanations of the money standard
