Excerpt from Absolute Money: A New System of National Finance, Under a Co-Operative Government

We are told that the regulation of money does not pertain to the functions of government, but should be left exclusively to the people themselves, and that government should confine' its activity simply to the protection of the life, liberty and: property of its citizens. I fear, however, that this desire to limit the authority of the government as much as possible, overleaps its own object. The -mere fact, that every nation has been compelled to erect mints, and coin the gold and silver brought to them, by impressing the government stamp upon the metals, shows that government cannot at any rate leave the entire regulation of the money question to its citizens. It must interfere to some extent, and the only ques tion is how far its interference shall extend. I think I have conclusively shown, that government must take control of the whole subject of money issue, and forbid' every outside inter ference with it. Under any other condition a scientific money system is impossible. The United States government might. With equal propriety confer its political and sovereign prerog atives, to make war and to levy taxes, upon the states and private corporations, as to allow the states and banks to' create money. The federal constitution speaks in unmistake able terms on this subject. The founders and statesmen of our republic had no doubts in regard to it, as I have shown by quotations from Franklin, Jefferson, Calhoun, and others. They saw clearly the danger of giving the states and private corporations the right to Create money. They wanted the nation at large to be the exclusive maker of this money; the nation, which alone could afford it adequate support by its wealth, sovereignty and power. But popular prejudice ia' favor of specie was still too strong for them at that time. Even as it needed a great war and the most serious necessi ties of the state before the founders of the bank of England could introduce amongst the people of great Britain the bless ings of paper money, to which, though it was irredeemable from 1797 to 1822, that country has been mainly indebted. For its subsequent so it required a great civil. War and irresistible necessities to force our government in.

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