The inhabitants of the
banking cities might obtain cash for their paper, as far as the cash of
the vaults would hold out; but distance puts it out of the power of the
country to do this. A farmer having a note of a Boston or Charleston
bank, distant hundreds of miles, has no means of calling for the cash.
And while these calls are impracticable for the country, the banks have
no fear of their being made from the towns; because their inhabitants
are mostly on their books, and there on sufferance only and during good
behavior.
In this state of things, we are called on to add ninety millions more
to the circulation. Proceeding in this career, it is infallible, that we
must end where the revolutionary paper ended. Two hundred millions was
the whole amount of all the emissions of the old Congress, at which
point their bills ceased to circulate. We are now at that sum; but with
treble the population, and of course a longer tether. Our depreciation
is, as yet, but at about two for one. Owing to the support its credit
receives from the small reservoirs of specie in the vaults of the banks,
it is impossible to say at what point their notes will stop. Nothing
is necessary to effect it but a general alarm; and that may take
place whenever the public shall begin to reflect on, and perceive, the
impossibility that the banks should repay this sum. At present, caution
is inspired no farther than to keep prudent men from selling property
on long payments.
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