But, besides the financial benefits to the Government of Mr. Chase's system, its other advantages are great indeed. It will ultimately displace our whole State bank system and circulation, and give us a national currency, based on ample private capital and Federal stocks, a currency of uniform value throughout the country, and always certainly convertible on demand into coin. Besides, by displacing the State bank circulation, the whole bank note currency of the Union will be based on the stocks of the Government, and give to every citizen who holds the bonds or the currency (which will embrace the whole community in every State), a direct interest in the maintenance of the Union.
The annual losses which our people sustain under the separate State bank system, in the rate of exchange, is enormous, whilst the constant and ever-recurring insolvency of so many of these institutions, accompanied by eight general bank suspensions of specie payment, have, from time to time, spread ruin and devastation throughout the country. I believe that, in a period of twenty years, the saving to the people of the United States, by the substitution of the new system, would reach a sum very nearly approaching the total amount of our public debt, and in time largely exceeding it. As a question, then, of national wealth, as well as national unity, I believe the gain to the country in time by the adoption of the new system, will far exceed the cost of the war. It was the State bank system in the rebel States that furnished to secession mainly the sinews of war. These banks are now generally insolvent, but, if the banking system now proposed had been in existence, and the circulating medium in all the States had been an uniform national currency based entirely on the stocks of the United States, the rebellion could never have occurred. Every bank, and all its stockholders, and all the holders of the stock and notes of all the banks, embracing our whole paper currency, would have been united to the Government by an interest so direct and universal, that rebellion would have been impossible. Hamilton and Madison, Story and Marshall, and the Supreme Court of the United States, have declared that to the Federal Government belongs the 'entire regulation of the currency of the country.' That power they have now exercised in the adoption of the system recommended by the Secretary. Our whole currency, in coin as well as paper, will soon, now, all be national, which is the most important measure for the security and perpetuity of the Union, and the welfare of the people, ever adopted by Congress. It is to Congress that the Constitution grants the exclusive power 'to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the States;' and a sound, uniform currency, in coin, or convertible on demand into coin, is one of the most essential instrumentalities connected with trade and exchanges.
After these preliminary remarks, I shall proceed with the discussion of the subject in my next letter.
R.J. Walker.
VOICELESS SINGERS.
A bird is singing in the leaves
That quiver on yon linden tree;
So soft and clear the song he sings,
The roses listen dreamily.
The crimson buds in clusters cling;
The full, sweet roses blush with bloom;
And, white as ocean's swaying foam,
The lily trembles from the gloom.
I know not why that happy strain
That dies so softly on the air,
That perfect utterance of joy,
Has left a strange, dim sadness there.
Perchance the song, so silver-sweet,
The roses' regal blossoms shrine:
Perchance the bending lily droops,
And trembles, 'neath its thrill divine.