widows, and some young ones among them, to whom I had sold stocks when they were high. Stocks have fallen now, and these foolish people really seem to think I am to blame. I told them that the fall of stocks was altogether owing to the infamous Specie Circular, and the odious Sub-Treasury, and thus satisfied some of them. With the rest I did the best I could-that is, I bought back their stocks at such prices as I was able and willing to give. Some of them said I was rather buying them back at such prices as they, from stress of circumstances, were forced to take. But what is this but the usual course of trade? All questions of price are questions of power-of power on the side of the seller to get as much as he can, and of power on the side of the buyer to give as little as he can. I was truly grieved at the conduct of many professing christians, both among the mechanics who visited me yesterday and the motley group that filled my office to-day. Downright infidels--very heathen -could hardly have displayed less resignation under reverses of fortune. There was one old father in particular, a man seventy-five years of age, and a member of the church from his youth, who seemed as if he would go frantic under his losses. He had, by my advice, sold his farm, in a neighbouring county, for five thousand dollars, and invested the proceeds in a stock, which was then the best in the market, being fifty per cent. above par. Through the vicissitudes of the times, (caused entirely by the abominable proceedings of Government,) it is now fifty per cent. below par. The old man said he knew not how, with what was left, he should be able to support himself, his aged and bed-ridden wife, and three small grandchildren, who had, within the last six months, lost both father and mother. Thursday. Good news at last. The odious Specie Circular is repealed! I know not at which most to rejoice, whether at the Government's being compelled to bow to the banks, or to the power now given to us to raise prices as high as we please. One joy is enough for one day, and the prospect of the rise of prices is quite sufficient of itself to make me forget all my past troubles. Now for the sale of the lots and houses that were transferred to me on Tuesday, and for the stocks I bought on Wednesday. And now I shall be able to do something handsome with my three million acres of Western lands and my six town plots. I may as well call them mine, for I have so arranged matters that Newcraft can never get them from me. Of all means of advancing the wealth of a country there is none like banking. Agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, are well enough in their place; but they all sink into insignificance when compared with this modern mode of acquiring wealth-or rather of producing, for I will maintain that the two terms are synonymous. By our banking operations, between 1834 and 1836, we gave value to many pieces of property which never had any value before, and which will never have any value again. The pine lands of Maine attest our power, as do also the cabbage gardens in the neighbourhood of New York, and the lands ten feet under water in the new State of Arkansas. An able writer estimates all the landed property in the United States as having been worth four thousand millions of dollars in 1834, and six thousand millions in 1836.* By our banking operations we added half as much to the value of real estate in two years as all the industry of the country had been able to give to it in two hundred years. And if the Government had not interfered with its despotic and atrocious experiments, who knows but that we might, in two years more, have made the real estate of the country worth sixty thousand millions! Now this obstacle is happily removed, confidence will be restored, and we shall go on increasing in wealth. Some say this will be only in appearance. Let it be so. What is there that is truly real in this world of vanity and show? Every thing depends on our conceptions of things, and if a man can only fix it firmly in his fancy that he is worth six millions of dollars, he may enjoy just as much happiness as if he really possessed this amount of solid wealth. If he had the whole sum in silver dollars he could not eat them or drink them; neither could he cat or drink what they could procure. A man's personal wants are very few, and easily supplied; but most men have cravings to which it is not easy to set limits. And I will affirm that there is no way in which all men's cravings, or even the cravings of any great number, can be satisfied, unless it be by banking, or some similar contrivance. It is, in the nature of things, absolutely impossible that all men, or that any great number of men, should be very rich; but by the rise of prices, produced by plentiful issues of paper money, a great many may be brought to believe that they are very rich, and thus enjoy as much satisfaction as if they really abounded in wealth. Happiness resides in the mind. All philosophers agree in this. Friday. Great jubilation at a meeting of our friends to-day; but Satan came among us in the guise of a Loco-Foco, and a more appropriate shape he could not have assumed. Loco-Foco said much about the importance of a fixed standard of value-that it would be as absurd to be always changing the size of the bushel, or the length of the yard stick, as to be always changing the value of the dollar, &c. Talked, also, much about justice, and equity, and honesty, and all that sort of thing. scripture to serve his purpose. very true in the abstract; but The devil can, you know, quote Told Loco that all he had said was he was a mere theorist. I was a *See pages 106 and 149 of "Principles of Political Economy." By H. C. Carey. Philadelphia, 1837. practical man. Loco asked me if I knew the true meaning of the word "theory." Told Loco that if I did not, my friend Doctor Diddler did. Loco asked what I meant by "a practical man." He had never heard of Adam Smith or J. B. Say's keeping a huckstershop. Made no reply to Loco, but thought within myself that " practical man " is one who has failed in business at least twice, and owes at least twice as much as he can ever pay. 66 a Changed the subject by telling Loco that the "Specie Circular" was a humbug." Loco said modestly that perhaps the paper money system was "a humbug." Here Dr. Diddler stepped in to my relief, in a manner which entitles him to my eternal gratitude. Without condescending to make a direct reply to Loco-Foco, he began: 66 "I am a humbug, Thou art a humbug, He, she, or it, is a humbug, We are humbugs, Ye or you are humbugs, And in this way went through all the tenses, present, imperfect past, perfect past, plusquam-perfect past, future, and paulo-post future, and all the moods, indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and infinitive. It is impossible for me to do justice to Doctor Diddler's performance on this occasion. His gesticulation was admirable, and his enunciation so varied that the conjugation of a verb was as pleasing to me as the best performed music I ever listened to. It even extorted a compliment from Loco-Foco, for he said Doctor Diddler must have been taking lessons from the editors of the Journal of Saturday. Well, this is most outrageous. The old Specie Circular is repealed; but here comes a new Specie Circular close on its heels. Our tyrannical Government is not content with redeemable paper, but will have it actually redeemed at stated periods! This is a downright farce. Redeemable paper, every one knows, is just as good as gold and silver. Having it redeemed is sinking bank notes to a level with the notes of private traders. The very means by which banks make their profits are by issuing a great many notes which, though always payable, are never paid. However, we have obtained one great and open triumph over our abominable Government, in the repeal of the old Specie Circular; and, as for the new, if we do not make that a dead letter my name is not Graball. Government is at Washington. The collectors are all along shore; and the receivers all over the prairies. They are not as stupid as the Administration. They know where their own true interest lies. Sunday. Really the Church is as much in need of reform as the State. McThwackem is still at the watering place, and his pulpit was supplied by, if possible, a more intolerable proser than we had last Sunday. His text was, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." He said that to be idolaters men need not bow down before images of wood and stone. There were false gods still more to be dreaded -idols of the mind, for, whatever a man did in heart regard as his Supreme Good was, in reality, the god he worshipped. At what shrine the great body of men of the present day paid their devotion, few could be at a loss to discover. At no period in the world's history had we stronger evidence of the truth, that "the love of money is the root of all evil." Hardly more ingenuity had been exerted in inventing machines for the multiplication of products, than in devising ways and means for abstracting wealth from toiling producers and honest proprietors. Operations of this kind on a small scale are, indeed, branded with the name of dishonesty; but when they become extensive they are highly honorable. Not a few seem to be of the opinion of the old Highland chieftain who thought the only crime consisted in not taking enough. On the same principle that "One murder makes a villain; millions, a hero," taking one dollar from one man is theft or robbery, taking a great many dollars from a great many men is only speculation. Such was the substance of this truly vapid discourse. In the evening went to hear Dr. Diddler, and was comforted and edified as usual. SONNET. TO A YOUNG LADY NAMED VIRGINIA. Thou bearest, maiden, a thrice honored name, Of Raleigh's homage to the vestal queen, B. F. B. |