AN EXAMINATION OF THE FINANCIAL PROBLEMS OF THEIR TRUE SOLUTION. BY HENRY REED. CINCINNATI: ROBERT CLARKE & CO., PUBLISHERS. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by HENRY REED, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern H J .7792 Gift d. H.L. Wilgus P-34 INTRODUCTION. THE purpose of this work is, 1. To introduce its readers to themselves; 2. To supply them with the implements for communion with each other. In order to arrive at conclusions which are essential to their well-being, it is often needful for men to be informed what they themselves are thinking about, and what they think about it; what thoughts have been conceived in their minds, which have not yet entered the domain of perfect consciousness; and he who, in respect to subjects of vital interest, is able to perform the office of medium or interpreter, between them and themselves, does them a service. Hundreds of thousands of men in the United States, while they give, on all occasions, their formal assent to the proposition that the public debt should be paid, feel, under an oppressive sense of the impossibility of paying it, that there must be, somewhere, a reason, if they could only find it, why it should not be paid. Their interior sense, under the impulse of the instinct of self-preservation, tells them that, in the nature of things, there must be a point where the right and the inevitable coincide; that there must be a principle to justify them for not doing that which to do is impracticable. The object of this essay is to supply an interpreter to that interior sense; to bring the conclusions of the instinct to the surface, by supplying them with appropriate words; to make the outer acquainted with the inner man; so that, by the aid of the higher intelligence he will thereby acquire, he may enter into such communion with other men as is essential to unity of sentiment and corresponding unity of conduct. It is a bold proposition to lay down, that the evidences of the public debt of the United States do not represent a binding obligation; that the authority to create debts, not being one of the legitimate powers of government, the contracts into which government enters for that purpose are void, and that consequently the question, to pay or not to pay, is one simply of discretion. He who lays down such a proposition, should be morally prepared to bear some temporary discountenance, and intellectually competent to defend it. For myself, I have a right to say, that I have never holden any other opinion, nor advocated any other. The conalusions to which I have arrived, therefore, are no fresh ones, invented for the occasion, or evolved from present economical, political, or party cir cumstances; and I would not have chosen this mode of communication with the public had any other been accessible. But whenever there is a train of thought which it is vitally essential to awaken in the popular mind, there is seldom a stated vehicle of communication. The business of the party newspaper is to hold the edge of the party implement to the face of the party grindstone. Trains of thought which are out of the prescribed track, are unacceptable. There is nothing that is holden by the journalistic code so dangerous as a conclusion drawn from other than party premises. There is nothing in the journalistic orbit so dreaded as an appeal to a fundamental principle. He who looks beyond the party platform, with its narrow planks and little traps for catching voters who dares to dissent from the dicta of the party sachems, is written down dangerous, and given to understand that he is under suspicion. There is no form of financial policy now presented to the people, or capable of being presented through the columns of newspapers of any party, which does not start from the predicate that the public debt must and shall be paid. There is, therefore, none which, by any possibility, can either now or in the future afford them the relief they crave, and to which they are entitled. The sole effect of a plan proposed is to sustain, by its antagonism, a plan adopted; and through a discussion of the claims of different schemes, neither of which can do more than perpetuate the evils that exist, keep the people quiet through a confusion of ideas. The knot of our financial system has become so involved and complicated, so perplexed with conflicting public and private interests, so overburdened and exacerbated by extravagance and mismanagement, that to untie it is impossible. There is but one way, and that is to cut it. Happily there is a principle under which this may be done. When abuses, with their accumulated consequences, have risen to a height so enormous, there are always those who have an interest in their continuance. These must be overcome; and to this end the principle must be set loose to perform its office. It is in exigencies like these that, if the people do but see aright, principles long enshrouded unvail themselves, and, endowed with fresh vitality, point the way to their own application. It may be indeed it has been said that it is too early to lay down the ideas which the following pages are written to advocate; that the public mind is not yet prepared for their entertainment. The objection admits the justice of the ideas in the anticipation of a time when they will be in order. To this it may be answered, that if they are sound now, they are as sound as they will be at any time to come; and that if they are not sound now they will not become so at any time, however remote. Truth is never in order, nor error out of order more at one time than at another. The one is always in order, the other never. What preparation does the public mind need for the entertainment of the largest truth upon the question of the highest importance? Are not the circumstances of the day sufficiently appalling? Was there ever a problem more momentous than that which daily and hourly facts are pressing upon the attention of the American people? Do we need a fresh accession of calami |