paper, always have, a direct interest in lowering the value of the currency, because it is the medium in which their own debts are computed.
§ 2. If regulated by the price of Bullion, as inconvertible Currency might be safe, but not Expedient.
In order that the value of the currency may be secure from being altered by design, and may be as little as possible liable to fluctuation from accident, the articles least liable of all known commodities to vary in their value, the precious metals, have been made in all civilized countries the standard of value for the circulating medium; and no paper currency ought to exist of which the value can not be made to conform to theirs. Nor has this fundamental maxim ever been entirely lost sight of, even by the governments which have most abused the power of creating inconvertible paper. If they have not (as they generally have) professed an intention of paying in specie at some indefinite future time, they have at least, by giving to their paper issues the names of their coins, made a virtual, though generally a false, profession of intending to keep them at a value corresponding to that of the coins. This is not impracticable, even with an inconvertible paper. There is not, indeed, the self-acting check which convertibility brings with it. But there is a clear and unequivocal indication by which to judge whether the currency is depreciated, and to what extent. That indication is the price of the precious metals. When holders of paper can not demand coin to be converted into bullion, and when there is none left in circulation, bullion rises and falls in price like other things; and if it is above the mint price—if an ounce of gold, which would be coined into the equivalent of [ 18.60 ] , i s s o l d f o r [ 20 or $25] in paper—the value of the currency has sunk just that much below what the value of a metallic currency would be. If, therefore, the issue of inconvertible paper were subjected