File:The American statesman- a political history, exhibiting the origin, nature and practical operation of constitutional government in the United States; (1877) (14778237121).jpg

Identifier: americanstatesma02youn (find matches)
Title: The American statesman: a political history, exhibiting the origin, nature and practical operation of constitutional government in the United States;
Year: 1877 (1870s)
Authors: Young, Andrew W. (Andrew White), 1802-1877 Ferris, George T. (George Titus), b. 1840
Subjects: Constitutional history
Publisher: New York (etc.) H. S. Goodspeed & company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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no more cause forrepining when the dollars received from South America were sent toother countries than when coffee and sugar took that direction. Weoften deceived ourselves by attributing to a scarcity of money thajwhich is the result of other causes. A member from Pennsylvania had represented the country full ofevery thing but money. The agricultural products, so abundant in thatstate, would not sell for money. But they would sell for money asquick as for any other article that happened to be in demand. Theywould sell for money as easily as for coffee or for tea, at the prices whichproperly belong to those articles. The mistake was in imputing to thewant of money what arises from want of demand. Men do not buywheat because they have money, but because they want wheat. Todecide whether money is plenty or not, that is, whether there is a largoportion of capital unemployed or not, when the currency is metallic, womust look not only to the prices of commodities, but also to the rate of
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i SPEECHES or CLAY AND WEBSTER. 337 interest. A low rate of interest, a facility of obtaining money on loans,a disposition to invest in permanent stocks, all of which are proofs thatmoney is abundant, do not infallibly denote a state of the highest pros-perity. They often show a want of employment for capital; and theaccumulation of specie shows the same thing. We have no occasion forthe precious metals as money, except for the purpose of circula-tion, or rather of sustaining a safe paper circulation. And when-ever there is a prospect of a profitable investment abroad, all thegold and silver, except what these purposes require, will be exported.So if a demand existed abroad for sugar and coffee, whatever amountof these articles might exist in the country beyond the wants of its ownconsumption, would be sent abroad to meet that demand. The high rate of exchange, too, had been referred to as a proof thatwe were on the downward road to ruin. The speaker, (Mr. Clay,) him-self had adverted

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