nnum of all the bills
issued. On an average, every twenty years the entire bank circulation
ceased to exist or deteriorated.

The loss of exchange from the west to the east on local currency
was one per cent. This loss was usually made a gain to themselves
by the bankers and "shavers." Under the most favorable state of
trade between the east and west an exchange of one per cent. was
demanded from drafts and bills of exchange. With a national
currency, uniform and equal throughout the country, this cost for
exchange would not exist or would be greatly reduced. I called
attention to the then increasing volume of local currency in the
United States. When the United States had issued $250,000,000 of
notes, the banks had largely increased their circulation. This
tended to depreciate both United States and bank notes.

I discussed at similar length the proposition that, as the states
were forbidden by the constitution to authorize the issue of bills
of credit, they were equally forbidden to authorize corporations
to issue circulating notes, which were bills of credit. Upon this
point it seemed to me that the authorities were absolutely conclusive.
That position was taken by the most eminent members of the
constitutional convention, by Joseph Story in his "Commentaries,"
by Daniel Webster, and other great leaders of both parties since
that time. It was in reference to these bills that Mr. Webster
used the language often quoted:

"A disordered currency is one of the greatest of political evils.
It undermines the virtues necessary for the support of the social
system, and encourages propensities destructive of its happiness.
It wars against industry, frugality, and economy; and it fosters
the evil spirits of extravagance and speculation. Of all the
contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none
has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper
money. This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the
rich man's field by the sweat of the poor man's brow. Ordinary
tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation, these bear lightly on the
happiness of the mass of the community, compared with a fraudulent
currency, and the robberies committed by depreciated paper."

In speaking of the bank circulation then afloat in the country, he
further said:

"It is further to be observed that the states cannot issue bills
of credit; not that they cannot make them a legal tender, but that
they ca