ulation of the country is thrown into the hands of the public
office-holders, and other public creditors comprising in number perhaps
not more than one quarter of a million, leaving the other fourteen
millions and three quarters to get along as they best can, with less
than one half of the specie of the country, and whatever rags and
shinplasters they may be able to put, and keep, in circulation. By
this means, every office-holder and other public creditor may, and
most likely will, set up shaver; and a most glorious harvest will the
specie-men have of it,--each specie-man, upon a fair division, having to
his share the fleecing of about fifty-nine rag-men. In all candor let me
ask, was such a system for benefiting the few at the expense of the many
ever before devised? And was the sacred name of Democracy ever before
made to indorse such an enormity against the rights of the people?

I have already said that the subtreasury will reduce the quantity of
money in circulation. This position is strengthened by the recollection
that the revenue is to be collected in Specie, so that the mere amount
of revenue is not all that is withdrawn, but the amount of paper
circulation that the forty millions would serve as a basis to is
withdrawn, which would be in a sound state at least one hundred
millions. When one hundred millions, or more, of the circulation we
now have shall be withdrawn, who can contemplate without terror the
distress, ruin, bankruptcy, and beggary that must follow? The man
who has purchased any article--say a horse--on credit, at one hundred
dollars, when there are two hundred millions circulating in the country,
if the quantity be reduced to one hundred millions by the arrival of
pay-day, will find the horse but sufficient to pay half the debt; and
the other half must either be paid out of his other means, and thereby
become a clear loss to him, or go unpaid, and thereby become a clear
loss to his creditor. What I have here said of a single case of the
purchase of a horse will hold good in every case of a debt existing at
the time a reduction in the quantity of money occurs, by whomsoever, and
for whatsoever, it may have been contracted. It may be said that
what the debtor loses the creditor gains by this operation; but on
examination this will be found true only to a very limited extent. It is
more generally true that all lose by it--the creditor by losing more of
his debts than he gains by the increased value o