further issue is superadded. The same series of phenomena recommences: prices rise, among the rest the prices of gold and silver articles, and it becomes an object, as before, to procure coin, in order to convert it into bullion. There is no longer any coin in circulation; but, if the paper currency is convertible, coin may still be obtained from the issuers in exchange for notes. All additional notes, therefore, which are attempted to be forced into circulation [pg 349] after the metals have been completely superseded, will return upon the issuers in exchange for coin; and they will not be able to maintain in circulation such a quantity of convertible paper as to sink its value below the metal which it represents. It is not so, however, with an inconvertible currency. To the increase of that (if permitted by law) there is no check. The issuers may add to it indefinitely, lowering its value and raising prices in proportion; they may, in other words, depreciate the currency without limit.
Such a power, in whomsoever vested, is an intolerable evil. All variations in the value of the circulating medium are mischievous: they disturb existing contracts and expectations, and the liability to such changes renders every pecuniary engagement of long date entirely precarious. The person who buys for himself, or gives to another, an annuity of one [hundred dollars], does not know whether it will be equivalent to [two hundred or to fifty dollars] a few years hence. Great as this evil would be if it depended only on accident, it is still greater when placed at the arbitrary disposal of an individual or a body of individuals, who may have any kind or degree of interest to be served by an artificial fluctuation in fortunes, and who have at any rate a strong interest in issuing as much as possible, each issue being in itself a source of profit—not to add, that the issuers may have, and, in the case of a government