It may, moreover, touch the circulation of bills,
by means of its indisputable right to lay a stamp-tax upon paper;
and Mr. Gallatin long ago recommended the exercise of this power, as
an effectual method of restraining the emission of small notes. Upon
what principle, then, can the President assert so dictatorially as
he does, that the Federal Government is concluded from action? If
the excesses of the State Banks are so enormous as he represents,
and so perpetually and so widely disastrous, why should it not
interpose to avert the fearful evil? Why refer us for relief to the
proceedings of thirty-one different legislative bodies, no three of
which, probably, would agree upon any coherent system? We do not
ourselves say that Congress ought to interfere and undertake by main
force to regulate the currency, because we hold to other and, as we
think, better methods of arriving at a sound and stable currency;
but from the stand-point of the President, and with his views of the
efficiency of legislative restrictions upon banks, we do not see how
he could consistently avoid recommending the instant action of
Congress. On the heel of his grandiloquent description of the evils
of redundant paper money,--evils which are felt all over the country,--
it is a lamentably impotent conclusion to say, "After all, we can't
do much to help it! Yes, let us confide piously in 'the wisdom and
patriotism of the State legislatures,'"--which are almost the last
places in the world, as things go, where we should look for either
quality.
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