The Origin, Tendencies and Principles of Government / A review of the rise and fall of nations from early historic time to the present; with special considerations regarding the future of the United States as the representative government of the world and the form of administration which will secure this consummation. Also, papers on human equality, as represented by labor and its representative, money; and the meaning and significance of life from a scientific standpoint, with its prophecies for the great future.

by Victoria C. Woodhull

First, a brief re-statement and condensation of the entire outline: Money, being an invention to facilitate the exchanges of the products of labor, it should be formulated with direct reference to the conditions which made the invention necessary, out of which it should naturally grow; and also with direct regard as to how the invention should best meet the required case—that is, the invention should be adapted to the conditions, instead of making an invention without regard to the conditions, and then attempting to force the conditions to comply with the capacity of the invention.

This is a point which should be thoroughly comprehended, for in it lies the whole fault of making gold a measure of value, and we therefore shall attempt to offer a common illustration directly in point.

Let it be supposed that there is a stream which, to accommodate travel, requires to be bridged, and that the bridge has to be constructed and moved to the stream. The first procedure would be to determine just how long the bridge must be to span the stream. It would then be constructed and moved to the stream, which it of course would span. But suppose persons knowing there was a stream to be crossed, but not knowing its breadth, had gone to work and constructed the bridge and then had attempted to compel it, when too short, to extend across the stream. This would have been a case of attempting to compel the conditions for which the invention was made to accommodate themselves to the invention. And this has been just what the world has been all this time doing in attempting to compel the conditions for which money was invented to accommodate themselves to the possibilities of gold, which was invented as money without any reference being had to the functions it was to perform, or to the conditions it was required to meet.

It would be just as reasonable and just as sensible to attempt to compel a house to perform the functions of a bridge as it is to attempt to compel gold to perform the functions of money, for gold is not nor cannot ever be made to meet the requirements for which money is demanded; whereas, money should be of such character as to fully meet the requirements for which it is used, but should not be possessed of any qualities that would render it useful for any other purpose whatever, so that there could be no possibility of its ever being used for any other purposes, which impossibility would forever make speculation impossible.

It is believed that we have made clear the purposes for which money is required and also clear that it is utterly futile to attempt to compel any invention to meet those requirements where it is not formulated for the express purpose. We have heretofore shown that gold is a purely arbitrary standard which has no scientific relations whatever to the product of labor which it is required to measure, but that it is itself a product, and as such requires to be measured. A gallon of molasses would never be thought of as a measure of distance, but it would be just as reasonable to expect it to measure it as it is to expect a certain quantity of gold to measure the value of a horse. A horse may be exchanged for a certain amount of gold. So, too, may a horse be exchanged for a certain amount of wheat, but that process does not make either the horse or the wheat money. Money is that which can equally represent the wheat, the horse and the gold; and anything that cannot do this is not money.

Hence it is seen that every step we take in examining the true bearings of the money question brings us nearer and clearer to the proposition already made—that the capacity for production is the true basis of value.

New York, Nov. 11, 1870

PAPERS ON FINANCE AND COMMERCE.

NO. XIII.

We are perfectly aware of the very many objections which arise in the minds of the people to such a currency as has been proposed, but the thoughtless one of “What! an irredeemable paper money! Oh, no! that will never do; that means utter repudiation,” which is the most commonly made, scarcely merits attention. Will those, who so earnestly place themselves in opposition to a convertible currency, stop and consider for just one moment. What is the ten-dollar gold piece you have just received for a ten-dollar note good for? Will it feed or clothe you? or will it directly minister to any of your needs or to those of any of your family? Directly, it will do none of these things for you; but you can have it really redeemed by something that will feed, clothe and minister to all your requirements. You will thus perceive that you have been and still are laboring under a foolish delusion regarding this precious metal, for you have all the time been getting your paper money redeemed by your gold money, which you finally are obliged to redeem by that which is really valuable—that which it takes to maintain life and make it desirable.