A History of American Currency

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 edition. Excerpt: ... transfer according to their occasions. The silver being assayed and weighed with scarcely any loss of time, the first mentioned cause of fluctuation in the relative value of the current medium compared with bullion is avoided. Certain masses of it being then certified (without any stamp being affixed on the metal) to be of a given quantity and fineness, the value is transferred from individual to individual by the medium merely of the bank books, and thus the wearing of the coin being prevented, one cause of depreciation is removed. A free right is also given to withdraw, melt, and export it; and thus the other and principal source of the occasional fall of the value of the current medium of payment, below that of the bullion which it is intended to represent, is also effectually precluded. In this manner at Hamburgh, silver is not only the measure of all exchangeable value, but it is rendered an invariable measure, except in so far as the relative value of silver itself varies with the varying supply of that precious metal from the mines. In the same manner the usage, and at last the law, which made gold coin the usual and at last the only legal tender in large payments here, rendered that metal our measure of value: and from the period of the reformation of the gold coin down to the suspension of the Bank payments in specie in 1797, gold coin was not a very variable measure of value; being subject only to that variation in the relative value of gold bullion which depends upon its supply from the mines, together with that limited variation, which, as above described, might take place between the market and the Mint price of gold coin. The highest amount of the depression of the coin which can take place when the Bank pays in gold, has...