andats_ and
other paper currency in process of repudiation lasted nearly ten years,
but the period of recovery lasted longer than the generation which
followed. It required fully forty years to bring capital, industry,
commerce and credit up to their condition when the Revolution began, and
demanded a "man on horseback," who established monarchy on the ruins of
the Republic and thew away millions of lives for the Empire, to be added
to the millions which had been sacrificed by the Revolution. [83]

Such, briefly sketched in its leading features, is the history of the
most skillful, vigorous and persistent attempt ever made to substitute
for natural laws in finance the ability of legislative bodies, and, for
a standard of value recognized throughout the world, a national standard
devised by theorists and manipulated by schemers. Every other attempt
of the same kind in human history, under whatever circumstances, has
reached similar results in kind if not in degree; all of them show the
existence of financial laws as real in their operation as those which
hold the planets in their courses. [84]

I have now presented this history in its chronological order--the order
of events: let me, in conclusion, sum it up, briefly, in its _logical_
order,--the order of cause and effect.

And, first, in the economic department. From the early reluctant and
careful issues of paper we saw, as an immediate result, improvement and
activity in business. Then arose the clamor for more paper money. At
first, new issues were made with great difficulty; but, the dyke once
broken, the current of irredeemable currency poured through; and, the
breach thus enlarging, this currency was soon swollen beyond control.
It was urged on by speculators for a rise in values; by demagogues who
persuaded the mob that a nation, by its simple fiat, could stamp real
value to any amount upon valueless objects. As a natural consequence a
great debtor class grew rapidly, and this class gave its influence to
depreciate more and more the currency in which its debts were to be
paid. [85]

The government now began, and continued by spasms to grind out still
more paper; commerce was at first stimulated by the difference in
exchange; but this cause soon ceased to operate, and commerce, having
been stimulated unhealthfully, wasted away.

Manufactures at first received a great impulse; but, ere long, this
overproduction and overstimulus proved as fatal to them as to co