promote our trade and commerce, will at the same time leave in our own
hands the means of retaliating with greater effect unjust regulations.

In intimate connection with the question of revenue is that which makes
provision for a suitable fiscal agent, capable of adding increased
facilities in the collection and disbursement of the public revenues,
rendering more secure their custody, and consulting a true economy
in the great, multiplied, and delicate operations of the Treasury
Department. Upon such an agent depends in an eminent degree the
establishment of a currency of uniform value, which is of so great
importance to all the essential interests of society, and on the wisdom
to be manifested in its creation much depends. So intimately interwoven
are its operations, not only with the interests of individuals, but of
States, that it may be regarded to a great degree as controlling both.
If paper be used as the chief medium of circulation, and the power be
vested in the Government of issuing it at pleasure, either in the form
of Treasury drafts or any other, or if banks be used as the public
depositories, with liberty to regard all surpluses from day to day as
so much added to their active capital, prices are exposed to constant
fluctuations and industry to severe suffering. In the one case political
considerations directed to party purposes may control, while excessive
cupidity may prevail in the other. The public is thus constantly liable
to imposition. Expansions and contractions may follow each other in
rapid succession--the one engendering a reckless spirit of adventure and
speculation, which embraces States as well as individuals, the other
causing a fall in prices and accomplishing an entire change in the
aspect of affairs. Stocks of all sorts rapidly decline, individuals
are ruined, and States embarrassed even in their efforts to meet with
punctuality the interest on their debts. Such, unhappily, is the
condition of things now existing in the United States. These effects may