emancipation won for all the activities of the human mind through the
free principles of the Reformation. Thus, by degrees, credit came to
intervene in nearly every operation of commerce and of social exchange,
from the small daily dealings of the mechanic at the shop, to the larger
wholesale transactions of merchant with merchant, and to the prodigious
expenditures and debts of imperial governments. Credit by note of hand,
credit by book account, credit by mortgages and hypothecations, credit
by bills of exchange, credit by certificates of stock, credit by
bank-notes and post-notes, credit by exchequer and treasury drafts,
credit, in short, in a thousand ways, enters into trade, filling up all
its channels, turning all its wheels, freighting all its ships, coming
down from the past, pervading the present, hovering over the future,
reaching every nook and affecting every man and woman in the civilized
world.

Such is the extent of credit; but let it be remarked in connection,
that, in all these innumerable and multifarious forms of it, in all the
stupendous interchanges of Mine and Thine, the ultimate reference is to
one sole standard of value, which is the value of the precious metals.
The civilized world has adopted these as the universal solvent of
its vast masses of obligation. It is assumed that some standard is
indispensable; it is asserted to be the imperative duty of governments,
if they would not make their exactions of taxes arbitrary, unequal, and
oppressive,--if they would render the dealings of individuals mutual and
just,--if they would preserve the property and labor of their subjects
from the merciless caprices of the powerful, and keep society from
reverting to a more or less barbarous state,--to supply a fixed and
equable money-measure; and the majority of the governments have selected
gold and silver as the best. As seemingly less changeable in quantity
and value than anything else, as imperishable, as portable, as